/  \1 


ENGLISH    COMPOSITION 
IN    THEORY   AND    PRACTICE 


THE  MACMILLAN  COMPANY 

NEW  YORK    •    BOSTON   •    CHICAGO 
ATLANTA  •    SAN   FRANCISCO 

MACMILLAN  &  CO.,  LIMITED 

LONDON    •    BOMBAY   •    CALCUTTA 
MELBOURNE 

THE  MACMILLAN  CO.  OF  CANADA,  LTD. 


ENGLISH  COMPOSITION 

IN  THEORY  AND  PRACTICE 


HENRY   SEIDEL  CANBY,  PH.D. 

FREDERICK   ERASTUS   PIERCE,  PH.D. 

HENRY  NOBLE  MACCRACKEN,  PH.D. 

ALFRED   ARUNDEL  MAY,  M.A. 
THOMAS  GODDARD  WRIGHT,  M.A. 

OF  THE  DEPARTMENT  OF   ENGLISH   COMPOSITION   IN  THE 

SHEFFIELD   SCIENTIFIC   SCHOOL  OF  YALE 

UNIVERSITY 


THE   MACMILLAN   COMPANY 
1910 

All  rights  reserved 


COPYRIGHT,  1909, 
BY  THE  MACMILLAN   COMPANY. 

Set  up  and  electrotyped.     Published  October,  1909.     Reprintec 
August,  1910. 


Nortoooli  $reas 

J.  8.  Gushing  Co.  —  Berwick  &  Smith  Co. 
Norwood,  Mass.,  U.S.A. 


PREFACE 

THE  authors  of  this  book  make  no  claim  to  originality,  save 
in  the  general  plan  of  the  volume,  and  in  certain  applications 
of  familiar  principles.  Our  purpose  has  been  to  combine,  in 
one  book,  a  set  of  directions  for  good  writing,  directions  based 
upon  sound  principles  and  written,  primarily,  for  the  student, 
with  a  varied  and  extensive  collection  of  examples  drawn  from 
all  the  forms  of  discourse,  and  inclusive  of  both  brief  excerpts 
and  complete  essays,  arguments,  and  stories.  We  have  added 
supplementary  material  in  the  several  appendices,  and  a  selected 
list  of  books  which  may  be  used  with  this  manual,  or  consulted 
for  parallel  discussions  of  the  topics  here  taken  up.  Exposition, 
Argument,  Description,  and  Narrative  present  differing  prob- 
lems in  the  teaching  of  English  Composition,  and  vary  in  their 
degree  of  usefulness  with  the  individual,  the  course,  and  the 
institution.  We  have  endeavored  to  give  to  each  the  propor- 
tionate space  and  the  kind  of  treatment  which  the  average 
student  requires.  The  whole  composition,  the  paragraph,  the 
sentence,  and  the  word  have  been  discussed  in  their  relation 
to  Exposition,  because,  for  the  average  student,  it  is  the  power 
to  explain  clearly  which  is  of  primary  importance.  Thus  Ex- 
position has  been  given  a  predominant  space.  The  chapter  on 
the  Sentence  goes  into  minute  detail  because  the  average 
student,  at  present,  does  not  understand  the  structure  of  the 


2064825 


vi  PREFACE 

sentence ;  the  chapter  on  Narrative  deals  with  constructive 
problems  mainly,  because  it  is  in  learning  to  construct  a  story 
that  he  can  best  make  Narrative  increase  his  powers  of  expres- 
sion ;  the  chapter  on  Description  includes  literary  and  esthetic 
problems  because  one  variety  of  Description  can  only  thus  be 
taught.  An  order  of  succession  for  these  various  topics  has 
been  chosen  after  experiment  with  many  classes.  Nevertheless, 
except  that  Exposition  must  come  first,  the  teacher  will  find 
that  the  plan  of  this  book  permits  any  arrangement  of  subjects 
which  his  own  experience  may  have  led  him  to  desire.  Ac- 
knowledgments of  the  kindness  of  various  publishers  will  be 
found  in  the  foot-notes  to  many  selections.  Our  indebtedness 
to  the  authorities  in  rhetorical  theory  is  too  extensive  for  specific 
reference.  The  bibliography  in  Appendix  VIII  is  but  a  partial 
confession  of  obligations  to  earlier  workers  in  the  field. 

The  chapter  on  the  Sentence  in  this  book  is  the  work  of  Mr. 
May ;  the  chapters  on  Argument,  on  Exposition,  and  the  Whole 
Composition  have  been  prepared  by  Dr.  Pierce ;  those  on  Nar- 
rative and  the  Paragraph  by  Professor  Canby  ;  those  on  Descrip- 
tion and  the  Word  by  Dr.  MacCracken  ;  Mr.  Wright  has  added 
certain  appendices,  selected  extracts,  and  prepared  the  manu- 
script for  the  press.  All  the  authors,  however,  have  united  in 
the  criticism,  in  the  elaboration,  and  in  the  revision  of  every 
part  of  the  volume. 


CONTENTS 


PREFACE 
INTRODUCTION 


PART   I.     EXPOSITION 

CHAPTER  I.    NATURE  AND  PURPOSE  OF  EXPOSITION    .        .        .        .  j 

CHAPTER  II.    UNITY  IN  THE  WHOLE  COMPOSITION     ....  3 

The  Future  of  the  English  Tongue 9 

T.  R.  Lounsbury. 

The  Art  of  Seeing  Things II 

John  Burroughs. 

CHAPTER  III.    COHERENCE  IN  THE  WHOLE  COMPOSITION  16 

Chronological  Arrangement 18 

The  Ground-Bait 18 

Izaak  Walton. 

Downfall  and  Refuge  of  Ancient  Civilization    ....       21 
John  Henry  Newman. 

Simple  to  Complex  Arrangement 28 

Method  of  Scientific  Investigation 29 

T.  H.  Huxley. 

The  Construction  of  Underground  Tunnels     ....       32 
Benjamin  Brooks. 

Books 34 

A.  C.  Benson. 

Second  Nature 41 

Grant  Allen. 

Enumeration .48 

The  Attitudes  of  Men  toi.ua rd  Immortality        ....       48 

G.  L.  Dickinson. 
Transition  Sentences  and  Paragraphs 51 


viii  CONTENTS 

PAGE 

CHAPTER  IV.    EMPHASIS  IN  THE  WHOLE  COMPOSITION  53 
Present  Relations  of  the  Learned  Professions  to  Political  Gov- 
ernment         55 

William  H.  Taft. 

Games 66 

A.  C.  Benson. 


CHAPTER  V.    THE  PARAGRAPH     . 

•         76 

,         .        .         ...         .76 

Unity       

.     '   ;        .        .        .88 

Coherence        

89 

89 

Specimen  Paragraphs 

90 

CHAPTER  VI.    THE  SENTENCE 

in 

Unity       

in 

Simple  Sentences 

..        .        .        .113 

Compound  Sentences  . 

"5 

Complex  Sentences 

118 

Loose  and  Periodic  Sentences 

125 

Coherence        

128 

Emphasis          

134 

CHAPTER  VII.    THE  RIGHT  WORD 

148 

Good  Use        

149 

Effectiveness    

I51 

Truth  

Force  ...... 

i53 

Suggestive  Power 

159 

PART   II.     ARGUMENTATION 

CHAFFER  VIII.    THE  BRIEF !64 

Phrasing  the  Proposition          .         .         .         .         .         .         .         .  i6c 

The  Introduction  to  the  Brief 166 

The  Body  of  the  Brief !6g 

CHARIER  IX.    DEVELOPMENT  OF  THE  FULL  ARGUMENT  FROM  THE  BRIEF  181 

Type  I.     Arguments  of  Theory  or  Fact 181 

The  Origin  of  the  Yosemite  Valley 1 82 

Josiah  Dwight  Whitney. 


CONTENTS  ix 

PAGE 

Type  II.     Arguments  of  Policy 187 

The  Liverpool  Speech 188 

Henry  Ward  Beecher. 

The  Training  of  the  Intellect 203 

Woodrow  Wilson. 

Refutation 209 

The  Value  of  the  Pacific  Cruise  of  the  United  States  Fleet,  1908     21 1 
Captain  A.  T.  Mahan. 

PART   III.     DESCRIPTION 

CHAPTER  X.    DESCRIPTION .        .221 

Unity 229 

Coherence        ...........     235 

Emphasis 237 

Suggestion .237 

Comparison  and  Contrast          ........     240 

Description  and  Narration 246 

Specimens  of  Description      .........     248 

Translations  from  the  Odyssey : 

1.  Odysseus  gets  to  Land 248 

2.  The  Home  of  Eumaeus    .......     249 

The  Gallon  Hill        .  , 250 

R.  L.  Stevenson :  Picturesque  Notes. 
Rome  from  the  Tarpeian          .......     255 

Nathaniel  Hawthorne  :  Marble  Faun. 
Desolate  Scene  in  Spain 256 

George  Borrow :  Bible  in  Spain. 
London  Bridge          .         .         .         .         .         .         .         .         .257 

George  Borrow :   Lavengro. 
Approach  of  Autumn 259 

William  Morris :   Earthly  Paradise. 
Netley  Abbey 260 

Horace  Walpole :  Letters. 
A  Hot  Night 260 

Rudyard  Kipling :  Man  Who  Would  Be  King. 
The  Island  of  Guernsey 261 

Victor  Hugo  :  Les  Travailleurs  de  la  Mer. 
Description  of  an  Interior        .......     262 

Nathaniel  Hawthorne:  House  of  Seven  Gables. 
Description  of  a  Person     ........     263 

Howard  Pyle :  Robin  Hood. 
Sketches  of  Character  and  Personality       .....     264 


X  CONTENTS 

PART   IV.     NARRATIVE 

PAGE 

CHAPTER  XI.     SIMPLE  NARRATIVE 272 

And  the  Crowd  Cheered 277 

New  York  Sun. 

A  Relation  of  the  Apparition  of  Mrs.  Veal       ....  285 

Daniel  Defoe. 

CHAPTER  XII.    THE  STORY  .        .        . 298 

Unity 299 

The  Cask  of  Amontillado 3°° 

Edgar  Allan  Poe. 

Coherence 307 

La  Grande  Breteche 310 

Honore  de  Balzac. 

Emphasis         ...........  33° 

The  Man  who  Was 333 

Rudyard  Kipling. 

Character  and  Setting  in  Narrative 346 

Conclusion 347 

Markheim .  348 

Robert  Louis  Stevenson. 

APPENDICES 

I.    TRANSITIONAL  WORDS  WITHIN  THE  PARAGRAPH       .        .        .365 

II.    EXERCISES  IN  SENTENCE  STRUCTURE 367 

Exercises  in  the  Unity  of  the  Sentence : 

A.  Sentences  for  Analysis 367 

B.  Sentences  for  Synthesis 372 

C.  Sentences  for  Revision 374 

Exercises  in  Coherence  ........  376 

Exercises  in  Emphasis 378 

Loose  and  Periodic  Sentences 380 

III.  EXERCISES  IN  THE  USE  OF  WORDS 383 

IV.  SPECIMEN  BRIEF 386 

V.    EXERCISES  IN  DESCRIPTION 389 

VI.    SUGGESTIONS  FOR  EXERCISES  IN  NARRATIVE  WRITING      .        .  391 

VII.    PUNCTUATION 395 

Exercises  in  Punctuation 401 

VIII.    SELECTED  LIST  OF  BOOKS  FOR  REFERENCE       ....  403 


INTRODUCTION 

To  write  well  is  to  put  one's  mind  in  communication  with  the 
minds  of  others.  To  write  well  is  to  solve  a  triple  problem,  and 
a  successful  solution  will  depend  upon  how  far  one  masters  the 
three  branches  of  this  problem,  straight  thinking,  adequate  ex- 
pression, and  good  form. 

Straight  thinking  is  probably  the  most  important  of  all;  cer- 
tainly it  must  come  first.  You  must  know  what  you  wish  to  say 
and  what  you  wish  to  accomplish  by  saying  it  before  you  put  pen 
to  paper,  or  you  will  seldom  write  well.  Carlyle,  who  knew  how 
to  write  well  even  if  he  did  not  always  do  so,  once  said,  "  As  for 
good  composition,  it  is  mainly  the  result  of  good  thinking,  and 
improves  with  that,  if  careful  observation  as  you  read  attends  it." 
Schopenhauer,  the  German  philosopher,  puts  this  truth  even  more 
forcibly  in  his  essay  on  authorship  and  style:  "Obscurity  and 
vagueness  of  expression  are  at  all  times  and  everywhere  a  very 
bad  sign.  In  ninety-nine  cases  out  of  a  hundred  they  arise  from 
vagueness  of  thought.  .  .  .  When  a  right  thought  springs  up  in 
the  mind,  it  strives  after  clearness  of  expression,  and  it  soon  attains 
it,  for  clear  thought  easily  finds  its  appropriate  expression.  A 
man  who  is  capable  of  thinking  can  express  himself  at  all  times 
in  clear,  comprehensible,  and  unambiguous  words.  Those 
writers  who  construct  difficult,  obscure,  involved,  and  ambiguous 
phrases  most  certainly  do  not  rightly  know  what  it  is  they  wish 
to  say:  they  have  only  a  dull  consciousness  of  it,  which  is  still 
struggling  to  put  itself  into  thought."  It  is  certainly  true  that  you 
must  have  straight  thinking  and  thus  well-ordered  thought  before 
you  are  ready  to  write. 

Adequate  expression  is  the  next  step  in  composition,  and  it  is 
adequate  expression  chiefly  which  a  book  like  this  one  is  designed 
to  teach.  The  "mute,  inglorious  Milton"  of  Gray's  Elegy  was 
presumably  a  man  who  had  thought,  but  had  not  learned  to  express 
himself.  The  theory  of  expression  is  simple.  The  difficulty  lies 
xi 


xii  INTRODUCTION 

in  the  application  of  this  theory  to  thoughts,  ideas,  feelings  which 
are  weighty  enough  to  be  worth  writing  about.  It  is  quite  true 
that  any  hard  worker  could  learn  adequate  expression  for  himself, 
since  the  principles  which  govern  it  are,  after  all,  only  those  which 
logical  thought  and  common  sense  would  be  sure  to  develop.  It 
is  also  true  that  one  can  learn  shorthand,  Latin,  painting,  or  civil 
engineering  without  a  teacher,  even  without  a  text-book,  but  we 
are  well  aware  that  such  a  method  is  wasteful  of  time,  and  therefore 
inefficient.  The  chapters  which  follow  constitute  a  set  of  directions 
and  a  selection  of  models  for  Exposition,  Argument,  Description, 
and  Narrative,  which,  if  properly  used,  should  save  time  in  learning 
to  write. 

Good  form  in  writing  is  like  good  form  in  dress.  It  is  bad  form 
to  wear  a  flannel  shirt  with  a  dress  coat  or  a  white  lawn  tie  with 
a  sack  suit.  It  is  quite  as  bad  form  to  punctuate  badly,  to  mis- 
spell, or  to  make  mistakes  in  grammar,  even  if  the  clearness  of 
your  writing  is  not  thereby  seriously  impaired.  Actually,  of  course, 
misspelling,  grammatical  errors,  and  bad  punctuation  do  usually 
affect  clearness,  sometimes  utterly  changing  the  sense.  But,  from 
either  point  of  view,  they  are  fatal  to  good  writing.  Such  re- 
mainders of  illiteracy,  for  no  gentler  name  can  be  applied,  should 
have  disappeared  before  the  writer  has  reached  the  age  when  he 
must  know  how  to  express  difficult  and  comprehensive  thoughts. 
For  various  reasons  this  Utopian  condition  does  not  yet  exist. 
Therefore,  we  have  included  practical  advice,  for  those  who  need 
it,  in  sections  upon  punctuation  and  upon  the  use  of  words  in  the 
appendix,  sections  which  those  who  require  them  should  study 
in  the  beginning,  in  the  middle,  and  at  the  end  of  any  course  in 
English  Composition. 

The  perfect  bloom  of  good  writing  is  style.  But  "  unto  him  who 
hath  shall  be  given."  However  essential  it  may  be  for  the  literary 
man,  a  style  is  not  the  most  important  thing  for  the  average  writer. 
Think  clearly,  express  your  thoughts  in  the  most  effective  manner, 
be  sure  that  your  book,  your  article,  your  report,  or  your  theme  is 
given  the  good  form  which  it  deserves.  When  you  can  do  all  this, 
and  not  before,  you  can  begin  to  think  of  style. 


ENGLISH    COMPOSITION 
IN    THEORY    AND    PRACTICE 


ENGLISH    COMPOSITION 

PART   I 

EXPOSITION 

CHAPTER  I 

NATURE  AND  PURPOSE  OF  EXPOSITION 

ALL  writing  is  usually  divided  into  four  great  classes :  Exposi- 
tion, Argument,  Narrative,  and  Description.  We  begin  with  Ex- 
position and  will  discuss  the  others  later.  Exposition  is  the  art  of 
stating  facts  clearly,  so  that  a  reader  will  understand  them.  It 
may  explain  some  knotty  point,  or  it  may  set  forth  some  very  simple 
matter  which  this  reader  had  never  heard  of  before;  but  in  either 
case  its  distinctive  mark  is  this  quality  of  clear  statement  of  facts. 
Its  aim  is,  not  to  tell  an  interesting  story,  not  to  create  a  vivid  pic- 
ture, not  to  argue  its  readers  into  doing  this  or  that,  —  but  merely 
to  make  the  reader  understand  how  matters  are.  If  you  should 
describe  the  appearance  of  an  automobile  rushing  down  the  street, 
what  you  wrote  would  be  Description.  On  the  other  hand,  if  you 
should  describe  the  way  in  which  the  machinery  of  such  an  auto- 
mobile worked,  your  theme  would  be  Exposition.  In  the  first  case 
you  are  simply  giving  a  vivid  picture  of  the  machine  as  it  looks  to 
you;  in  the  second  you  are  explaining  the  actual  facts  about  the 
machine.  Again,  if  you  will  compare  any  text-book,  such  as  the 
one  before  you,  for  instance,  with  any  novel,  you  will  see  at  once 
the  difference  between  Exposition  and  Narrative.  The  great  aim 
of  Exposition,  as  shown  in  such  a  text-book,  is  to  be  clear;  that  of 
Narrative,  as  illustrated  by  the  novel,  is  to  be  interesting.  The 
first  has  given  you  knowledge ;  the  second  has  caused  you  pleasure. 

Exposition  is  the  most  practical  of  all  forms  of  writing.  The 
power  of  clear  expression  is  something  required  by  every  man  in 


2  ENGLISH  COMPOSITION 

every  walk  of  life.  Not  only  is  it  necessary  in  lectures  and  maga- 
zine articles,  but  it  is  indispensable  in  reports  and  prospectuses, 
and  helpful  even  in  such  everyday  matters  as  explaining  machinery 
to  a  green  workman,  or  explaining  one's  plans  to  friends.  Like 
most  useful  gifts,  it  is  not  born  in  the  majority  of  men,  but  must  be 
acquired  by  practice. 

This  quality  in  expository  writing,  this  ability  to  make  clear 
as  crystal  to  another  man  just  what  you  wish  him  to  see,  depends 
chiefly  on  the  observance  of  three  very  important  principles  of 
rhetoric.  These  principles  are  usually  called  Unity,  Coherence, 
and  Emphasis.  A  great  deal  of  skill  is  sometimes  required  in  ap- 
plying them  to  particular  subjects,  but  at  bottom  they  are  quite 
simple.  Unity  consists  merely  in  "sticking  to  your  subject," 
in  having  one  thing  to  say  and  saying  it  without  rambling  over 
all  creation.  Coherence  means  merely  taking  things  up  in  a  clear 
order;  or,  to  use  the  words  of  the  proverb,  not  "putting  your  cart 
before  your  horse."  Emphasis  is  nothing  more  than  making  your 
reader  see  what  things  are  important  and  what  ones  are  merely 
side-issues.  So  commonplace  do  these  directions  sound  that  the 
student  may  think  that  they  are  not  worth  observing,  or  that  he 
knows  them  already ;  but  as  a  matter  of  fact,  they  contain  the 
whole  secret  of  clear  expression,  and  not  one  undergraduate  in  ten 
follows  them  properly  in  his  natural  method  of  writing.  Unity, 
Coherence,  and  Emphasis  may  be  applied  to  the  theme  as  a  whole, 
to  the  separate  paragraphs  in  the  theme,  or  to  the  separate  sen- 
tences in  the  paragraph.  We  cannot,  however,  do  all  this  at  once; 
consequently  we  will  apply  them  to  the  whole  theme  first,  and 
take  up  the  paragraph  and  sentence  later. 


CHAPTER  II 

UNITY  IN   THE   WHOLE  COMPOSITION 

WHEN  a  man  starts  out  to  write  a  theme,  he  should  realize  at 
the  very  beginning  that  he  is  trying  to  say  something  which  his 
reader  wishes  to  know.  He  must  say  it  clearly,  or  his  reader  will 
not  understand  it;  and  he  must  go  right  to  the  point  and  say  that 
and  that  only,  for  his  reader's  time  is  money  and  must  not  be 
wasted.  In  order  to  do  this,  he  should  have  a  very  clear  idea  in 
his  own  mind  of  just  what  he  is  going  to  say  before  he  pens  a 
single  sentence.  In  other  words,  he  should  write  a  theme  as  a 
man  builds  a  house.  He  should  decide  what  kind  of  theme  he 
needs  and  draw  up  a  plan  for  it  before  he  begins  to  write,  just 
as  an  architect  decides  what  kind  of  house  is  needed  and  draws 
up  a  plan  for  it  before  the  building  is  begun. 

Suppose  that  you  are  about  to  write  a  theme.  The  first  thing 
to  do  is  to  choose  a  subject.  This  should  always  be  small  enough 
so  that  you  can  handle  it  in  a  theme  of  the  required  length,  say 
four  or  five  hundred  words.  A  subject  like  My  Preparatory 
School,  for  example,  would  be  a  great  deal  too  big  for  a  short  theme. 
It  would  include  an  account  of  the  buildings,  the  courses  of  study, 
the  athletics,  the  various  instructors,  the  history  of  the  institution, 
the  books  in  the  library,  and  a  host  of  other  things,  not  excepting 
even  those  nocturnal  undergraduate  activities  which  we  lonely 
members  of  the  faculty  dream  about,  but  never  see.  A  whole  book 
as  long  as  Tom  Brown  at  Rugby  could  be  drawn  from  a  mere 
fragment  of  such  a  topic.  On  the  other  hand,  a  subject  such  as 
My  Favorite  Sports  at  Rogers  School  is  small  enough  to  handle  in 
a  short  theme. 

You  should  also  write  your  essay  about  something  which  you 
already  understand  and  in  which  you  are  interested.  "  Out  of 
the  fullness  of  the  heart  the  mouth  speaketh."  It  is  a  great  mis- 
take to  suppose  that  all  composition  is  necessarily  dry.  Every 
3 


4  ENGLISH   COMPOSITION 

intelligent  boy  has  subjects  upon  which  he  likes  to  talk;  and 
writing  is  nothing  more  than  talking  on  paper.  The  difference 
between  a  dry  subject  and  one  that  you  like  is  the  difference  be- 
tween a  pump  and  an  artesian  well.  In  the  first  case  you  pump 
up  your  ideas  laboriously  with  sweat  and  lamentations;  in  the 
second  case  you  make  an  opening,  and  the  ideas  come  spouting 
out  of  themselves. 

After  you  have  chosen  your  subject,  the  next  thing  is  to  draw 
up  an  outline  of  those  things  which  you  wish  to  say  about  it.  This 
is  very  important.  If  you  begin  to  write  before  drawing  up  an 
outline,  you  will  be  sure  to  wander  aimlessly  around  and  talk 
through  four  hundred  words  without  getting  anywhere;  if  you 
have  your  outline  beforehand,  you  will  know,  when  you  begin  to 
write,  just  where  you  are  going,  and  start  straight  for  the  mark. 

Suppose  your  subject  is  The  Reason  Why  I  Came  to  St.  Oswald's 
School.  Now  you  are  not  trying  to  fill  up  three  pages  of  paper  — 
that  would  be  simply  wasting  your  own  time  and  your  reader's  — ; 
you  are  trying  to  make  somebody  realize  just  what  your  reasons 
were  for  coming  to  St.  Oswald's  because  this  somebody  is  actually 
anxious  to  know  those  reasons.  Consequently,  you  must  tell  him 
everything  which  you  can  about  that  one  subject  because  he  wishes 
to  know  it;  and  you  must  not  mix  in  anything  about  any  other 
subject,  because  that  would  simply  confuse  him  and  waste  his  time. 
By  including  everything  which  bears  on  the  subject  and  excluding 
everything  which  does  not,  you  are  following  the  law  of  Unity, 
which  is  one  of  the  three  important  principles  mentioned  before. 
Your  first  outline  would  probably  be  something  like  this :  — • 

1.  Value  of  an  education. 

2.  Life  at  grammar  school. 

3.  First  impressions  of  St.  Oswald's. 

4.  Friends  who  went  there. 

5.  Good  teachers. 

6.  Nice  class  of  fellows. 

7.  Pleasant  situation. 

Now,  with  this  outline  before  you,  sit  down  and  think  over  each 
item  carefully,  to  see  whether  or  not  it  belongs  in  your  theme 
according  to  the  principle  of  Unity.  You  are  giving  your  rea- 
sons for  coming  to  St.  Oswald's.  If  you  have  any  heading  there 


UNITY   IN   THE   WHOLE   COMPOSITION  5 

which  does  not  contain  a  reason  why  you  came  to  St.  Oswald's, 
it  should  be  crossed  out;  it  does  not  bear  on  the  one  main  point 
which  your  reader  wishes  to  know,  and  its  presence  there  will  only 
confuse  him.  Obviously  your  life  at  grammar  school  is  not  a 
reason  why  you  came  to  St.  Oswald's,  hence  that  should  go  out. 
It  is  of  no  more  use  there  than  an  idle  man  in  a  racing  shell.  The 
same  is  true  of  the  value  of  an  education.  You  can  get  an  educa- 
tion in  a  host  of  ways  and  at  a  host  of  places.  It  may  be  a  reason 
why  you  went  to  some  high  school ;  but  it  could  hardly  be  a  reason 
why  you  went  to  the  particular  school  of  St.  Oswald's,  when  fifty 
other  schools  would  have  educated  you  just  as  well.  If  your  first 
impressions  of  St.  Oswald's  influenced  you  in  coming  there,  that 
heading  would  be  retained;  but  if  you  had  made  up  your  mind  to 
come  there  before  you  ever  saw  the  place,  your  first  impressions 
would  have  nothing  to  do  with  your  coming.  You  would  there- 
fore cross  this  out  or  not,  according  to  circumstances. 

Next,  when  you  are  sure  that  nothing  but  real  reasons  for  com- 
ing to  St.  Oswald's  remains  in  your  list,  ask  yourself  if  you  have 
included  all  those  reasons.  If  you  have  not,  you  should  do  so. 
Unity  demands  the  subject  and  the  whole  subject,  as  well  as 
nothing  but  the  subject.  If  you  examine  your  own  mind  care- 
fully, you  may  find  that  you  went  to  St.  Oswald's  partly  because 
it  sent  most  of  its  men  to  Atwater  College,  and  you  had  decided 
beforehand  to  go  to  Atwater.  If  that  is  the  case,  this  point  should 
be  included  in  your  list,  which  now  would  stand  as  follows :  — 

1.  Friends  who  went  there. 

2.  Good  teachers. 

3.  Nice  class  of  fellows. 

4.  Pleasant  situation. 

5.  The  fact  that  most  of  my  class  would  enter  Atwater  with  me. 
Now  you  are  ready  to  commence  writing.     And  here  at  the  very 

start  I  must  sound  a  warning  to  which  all  beginners  should  listen. 
Most  young  writers  think  that  they  must  begin  a  theme  with  a 
rather  vague  and  shadowy  thing  called  an  Introduction.  Just 
what  this  Introduction  is,  and  just  what  useful  purpose  it  serves, 
is  usually  as  much  of  a  mystery  to  these  youthful  writers  as  it  is 
to  their  readers;  but  with  a  grim  sense  of  duty  they  insist  on 
putting  it  in.  The  result  is  frequently  a  violation  of  Unity  at 


6  ENGLISH  COMPOSITION 

the  very  outset.  Your  only  object  in  writing  a  theme  is  to  tell 
something  and  to  tell  it  clearly;  and  the  sooner  you  start  about 
the  work,  the  better.  There  are  cases  in  which  some  kind  of  an 
introduction  makes  your  start  clearer  for  the  reader;  and  when 
this  is  so,  anything  which  helps  the  reader  understand  is  a  good 
thing;  but  in  most  undergraduate  themes  nothing  of  the  kind  is 
needed.  The  proper  way  to  open  any  ordinary  essay  is  to  begin 
writing  about  your  first  topic  in  your  very  first  sentence.  For 
example,  the  theme  on  St.  Oswald's  School  should  start  out  some- 
thing like  this :  "  One  reason  why  I  went  to  St.  Oswald's  School 
was  because  many  of  my  friends  had  been  there  before  me.  My 

oldest  brother  had  graduated  there  in etc."  Similarly,  if  you 

were  describing  the  different  methods  of  catching  trout,  you  would 
begin  with  the  first  step  in  the  process  or  the  first  precaution  to  be 
taken  in  actual  trout  fishing;  and  rambling  preliminary  remarks 
which  did  not  tell  how  to  catch  trout  would  no  more  belong  at 
the  beginning  of  your  essay  than  would  the  story  of  Jonah  and  the 
whale.  You  are  telling  your  reader  how  to  do  one  particular 
thing;  and  the  sooner  you  get  launched,  the  better. 

After  you  are  well  started,  the  simplest  way  for  the  present  is 
to  write  one  paragraph  on  each  of  your  headings,  and  when  this 
is  done  the  theme  is  finished.  The  matter  of  paragraphs  will  be 
taken  up  in  detail  later.  But  all  through  the  theme  as  you  write 
it  you  must  apply  to  everything  you  say  the  principle  of  Unity. 
Every  sentence,  every  part  of  a  sentence  even,  which  does  not  in 
some  way  help  to  explain  your  reasons  for  coming  to  St.  Oswald's 
School  should  be  excluded.  This  rule  may  seem  unreasonably 
strict  at  first,  but  it  is  founded  on  sound  common  sense  and  years 
of  experience.  You  cannot  follow  an  instructor's  lecture  if  dis- 
tracting sounds  keep  coming  in  from  outside;  neither  can  you 
follow  the  main  thread  of  a  man's  essay  if  he  allows  distracting 
ideas,  which  have  nothing  to  do  with  his  subject,  to  keep  stealing 
in. 

The  principle  of  Unity  as  outlined  above  is  very  simple  in  theory ; 
in  practice  it  is  sometimes  rather  hard  to  follow.  Frequently 
a  writer  starts  to  explain  something  about  his  theme,  finds  some- 
thing else  apparently  connected  with  that,  and  a  third  something 
with  the  second,  and  so  is  gradually  drawn  away  from  his  subject 


UNITY   IN    THE   WHOLE   COMPOSITION  7 

before  he  realizes  it.  For  instance,  if  he  were  writing  the  above 
theme  on  St.  Oswald's  School  and  taking  up  its  pleasant  situation 
as  one  reason  why  he  came  there,  he  would  be  very  apt,  unless 
he  were  careful,  to  write  it  somewhat  as  follows :  — 

Another  reason  why  I  came  to  St.  Oswald's  was  because  it  is  very 
pleasantly  situated  among  the  hills  of  —  State.  This  type  of  scenery 
seemed  doubly  attractive  to  me  as  I  had  always  lived  on  the  prairies. 
There  everything  is  fiat  and  uninteresting  for  mile  after  mile,  so  much  so 
that  your  eye  gets  tired  of  seeing  it.  IT  is  DEPRESSING  TO  LIVE  IN 
SUCH  A  COUNTRY;  AND  i  DO  NOT  INTEND  EVER  TO  LIVE  THERE 

AGAIN. 

Here  the  first  two  sentences  belong  in  the  theme,  the  sentence 
in  italics  is  beginning  to  ramble,  and  the  sentence  in  capitals  is 
completely  off  the  track.  The  only  way  to  avoid  digressions  like 
this  is  to  keep  your  main  topic  constantly  in  mind,  and  stop  short 
the  moment  that  you  feel  you  are  beginning  to  go  off  on  a  tangent. 

There  is  also  another  consideration  under  the  head  of  Unity 
which  is  perhaps  the  most  important  of  all  and  which  young 
writers  are  most  inclined  to  overlook.  This  is  that  you  must  not 
only  have  everything  you  say  connected  with  your  main  subject, 
but  you  must  also  show  your  reader  that  it  is  connected.  You  must 
always  remember  that  the  people  for  whom  you  write  are  not 
mind  readers;  they  cannot  see  what  you  thought,  they  can  see 
only  what  you  say.  Frequently  you  will  include  in  your  theme 
some  topic  which,  as  you  thought  of  it,  really  belongs  there,  but 
which  is  so  unfortunately  worded  that  it  sounds  to  the  reader  like 
a  digression.  There  is  a  connection  between  this  heading  and 
the  main  subject  of  your  essay,  and  you  yourself  see  this  con- 
nection perfectly ;  but  you  have  not  shown  this  connection  in  your 
writing,  and,  consequently,  your  readers  would  not  see  it.  For 
example,  suppose  that  your  subject  is  My  Reasons  for  Preferring 
Football  to  Crew,  and  that  one  of  your  reasons  is  the  fact 
that  your  preparatory  school  was  not  near  any  convenient  body 
of  water  where  you  could  row.  Now  suppose  you  wrote  the 
paragraph  as  follows :  — 

I  was  educated  at  the  Dean  School.  It  lies  among  the  hills  of  Ver- 
mont without  any  body  of  water  near  it.  There  is  nothing  bigger  than 
a  trout  stream  within  ten  miles. 


8  ENGLISH  COMPOSITION 

This  would  at  once  strike  your  reader  as  a  bad  digression  in 
a  theme  on  your  reasons  for  preferring  football.  The  thought 
in  your  mind  as  you  wrote  was :  "  There  was  no  water  near,  con- 
sequently I  couldn't  row;  consequently  I  didn't  grow  to  like  rowing 
as  well  as  football" ;  but  all  that  your  reader  sees  is  a  useless  state- 
ment about  Dean  School  when  you  were  talking  of  something 
else.  The  idea  in  the  italicized  words,  which  is  precisely  the  con- 
necting link  between  this  subtopic  and  the  subject  of  your  whole 
theme,  has  not  been  told  to  him  at  all.  The  paragraph  should 
have  been  written  somewhat  like  this :  — 

Another  reason  for  my  presence  is  found  in  my  training  at  pre- 
paratory school.  Dean  School  has  an  admirable  football  field,  and, 
as  we  played  there  every  day,  of  course  we  grew  fond  of  the  sport. 
On  the  other  hand,  there  is  no  lake  or  navigable  stream  within  ten  miles 
of  the  place ;  consequently  we  had  no  chance  even  to  learn  to  row,  much 
less  to  form  any  liking  for  it.  Naturally  the  tastes  which  I  formed  there 
in  my  teens  have  clung  to  me  ever  since. 

Here  the  italicized  phrases  help  to  show  the  reader  that  all  this  is 
one  of  the  causes  why  you  prefer  football.  This  art  of  making  your 
reader  see  that  certain  doubtful  topics  really  do  belong  in  your 
theme  has  no  generally  accepted  name.  For  the  sake  of  conven- 
ience you  may,  if  you  wish,  call  it  Evidence  of  Unity  or  Indication 
of  Unity.  This  Evidence  of  Unity  is  very  important  as  a  practical 
matter;  for  bright  men,  who  would  be  too  intelligent  to  be  guilty  of 
actual  digressions,  frequently  write  whole  paragraphs  that  sound 
like  digressions  because  the  connection  is  not  brought  out.  Of 
course  one  fault  is  just  as  bad  as  the  other,  for  both  seem  the  same 
to  the  reader;  and  the  only  value  which  a  theme  can  have  lies  in 
the  fact  that  it  makes  something  clear  to  the  man  who  reads  it. 

Now  if  you  are  certain  that  everything  in  your  theme  belongs 
there  and  that  the  reader  can  see  why  it  belongs  there,  you  have 
fulfilled  the  requirements  of  Unity  for  the  theme  as  a  whole  and 
are  ready  to  consider  Coherence  and  Emphasis.  Before  taking 
these  up,  however,  it  will  be  well  to  examine  the  following  extracts 
which  illustrate  the  value  both  of  having  Unity  and  of  showing  it. 


L'XITY   IN    THE   WHOLE   COMPOSITION  g 

THE  FUTURE   OF  THE  ENGLISH  TONGUE 

T.    R.    LOUNSBURY 

This  brings  us  directly  to  the  discussion  of  a  question  with 
which  the  general  history  of  English  may  properly  conclude: 
What  is  to  be  the  future  of  our  tongue?  Is  it  steadily  tending  to 
become  corrupt,  as  constantly  asserted  by  so  many  who  are  la- 
boriously devoting  their  lives  to  preserve  it  in  its  purity?  The 
fact  need  not  be  denied,  if  by  it  is  meant,  that,  within  certain  limits, 
the  speech  is  always  moving  away  from  established  usage.  The 
history  of  language  is  the  history  of  corruptions.  The  purest  of 
speakers  uses  every  day,  with  perfect  propriety,  words  and  forms, 
which,  looked  at  from  the  point  of  view  of  the  past,  are  improper, 
if  not  scandalous.  But  the  blunders  of  one  age  become  good  usage 
in  the  following,  and,  in  process  of  time,  grow  to  be  so  consecrated 
by  custom  and  consent,  that  a  return  to  practices  theoretically 
correct  would  seem  like  a  return  to  barbarism.  While  this  fur- 
nishes no  excuse  for  lax  and  slovenly  methods  of  expression,  it  is 
a  guaranty  that  the  indulgence  in  them  by  some,  or  the  adoption 
of  them  by  all,  will  not  necessarily  be  attended  by  any  serious 
injury  to  the  tongue.  Vulgarity  and  tawdriness  and  affectation, 
and  numerous  other  characteristics  which  are  manifested  by  the 
users  of  language,  are  bad  enough ;  but  it  is  a  gross  error  to  suppose 
that  they  have  of  themselves  any  permanently  serious  effect  upon 
the  purity  of  national  speech.  -  They  are  results  of  imperfect  train- 
ing; and,  while  the  great  masters  continue  to  be  admired  and 
read  and  studied,  they  are  results  that  will  last  but  for  a  time. 

The  causes  which  bring  about  the  decline  of  a  language  are,  in 
truth,  of  an  entirely  different  type.  It  is  not  the  use  of  particular 
words  or  idioms,  it  is  not  the  adoption  of  peculiar  rhetorical  devices, 
that  contribute  either  to  the  permanent  well-being  or  corruption 
of  any  tongue.  These  are  the  mere  accidents  of  speech,  the  fashion 
of  a  time  which  passes  away  with  the  causes  that  gave  it  currency. 
Far  back  of  these  lie  the  real  sources  of  decay.  Language  is  no 
better  and  no  worse  than  the  men  who  speak  it.  The  terms  of 
which  it  is  composed  have  no  independent  vitality  in  themselves: 
it  is  the  meaning  which  the  men  who  use  them  put  into  them,  that 


10  ENGLISH   COMPOSITION 

gives  them  all  their  power.  It  is  never  language  in  itself  that  be- 
comes weak  or  corrupt :  it  is  only  when  those  who  use  it  become 
weak  or  corrupt,  that  it  shares  in  their  degradation.  Nothing  but 
respect  need  be  felt  or  expressed  for  that  solicitude  which  strives 
to  maintain  the  purity  of  speech;  yet  when  unaccompanied  by  a 
far-reaching  knowledge  of  its  history,  but,  above  all,  by  a  thorough 
comprehension  of  the  principles  which  underlie  the  growth  of 
language,  efforts  of  this  kind  are  as  certain  to  be  full  of  error  as 
they  are  lacking  in  result.  There  has  never  been  a  time  in  the 
history  of  Modern  English  in  which  there  have  not  been  men  who 
fancied  that  they  foresaw  its  decay.  From  the  sixteenth  to  the 
nineteenth  century  on,  our  literature,  whenever  it  touches  upon  the 
character  of  the  vehicle  by  which  it  is  conveyed,  is  full  of  the  severest 
criticism;  and  its  pages  are  crowded  with  unavailing  protests 
against  the  introduction  of  that  which  now  it  hardly  seems  possible 
for  us  to  do  without,  and,  along  with  these,  with  mournful  com- 
plaints of  the  degeneracy  of  the  present,  and  with  melancholy 
forebodings  for  the  future.  So  it  always  has  been ;  so  it  is  always 
likely  to  be.  Yet  the  real  truth  is,  that  the  language  can  be  safely 
trusted  to  take  care  of  itself,  if  the  men  who  speak  it  take  care  of 
themselves;  for  with  their  degree  of  development,  of  cultivation, 
and  of  character,  it  will  always  be  found  in  absolute  harmony. 

In  fact,  it  is  not  from  the  agencies  that  are  commonly  supposed 
to  be  corrupting  that  our  speech  at  the  present  time  suffers;  it  is 
in  much  more  danger  from  ignorant  efforts  made  to  preserve  what 
is  called  its  purity.  Rules  have  been  and  still  are  laid  down  for 
the  use  of  it,  which  never  had  any  existence  outside  of  the  minds 
of  grammarians  and  verbal  critics.  By  these  rules,  so  far  as  they 
are  observed,  freedom  of  expression  is  cramped,  idiomatic  peculiarity 
destroyed,  and  false  tests  for  correctness  set  up,  which  give  the 
ignorant  opportunity  to  point  out  supposed  error  in  others ;  while 
the  real  error  lies  in  their  own  imperfect  acquaintance  with  the 
best  usage.  One  illustration  will  be  sufficient  of  multitudes  that 
might  be  cited.  There  is  a  rule  of  Latin  syntax  that  two  or  more 
substantives  joined  by  a  copulative  require  the  verb  to  be  in  the 
plural.  This  has  been  foisted  into  the  grammar  of  English,  of 
which  it  is  no  more  true  than  it  is  of  modern  German.  There  is 
nothing  in  the  usage  of  the  past,  from  the  very  earliest  times,  to 


UNITY   IN   THE   WHOLE   COMPOSITION  u 

authorize  it ;  nothing  in  the  usage  of  the  present  to  justify  it,  except 
so  far  as  the  rule  itself  has  tended  to  make  general  the  practice  it 
imposes.  The  grammar  of  English,  as  exhibited  in  the  utterances 
of  its  best  writers  and  speakers,  has,  from  the  very  earliest  period, 
allowed  the  widest  discretion  as  to  the  use  either  of  the  singular 
or  the  plural  in  such  cases.  The  importation  and  imposition  of 
rules  foreign  to  its  idiom,  like  the  one  just  mentioned,  does  more 
to  hinder  the  free  development  of  the  tongue,  and  to  dwarf  its 
freedom  of  expression,  than  the  widest  prevalence  of  slovenliness  of 
speech,  or  of  affectation  of  style;  for  these  latter  are  always  tem- 
porary in  their  character,  and  are  sure  to  be  left  behind  by  the  ad- 
vance in  popular  cultivation,  or  forgotten  through  the  change  in 
popular  taste. 

THE  ART   OF  SEEING  THINGS* 

JOHN   BURROUGHS 

There  is  nothing  in  which  people  differ  more  than  in  their 
powers  of  observation.  Some  are  only  half  alive  to  what  is  going 
on  around  them.  Others,  again,  are  keenly  alive :  their  intelligence, 
their  powers  of  recognition,  are  in  full  force  in  eye  and  ear  at  all 
times.  They  see  and  hear  everything,  whether  it  directly  concerns 
them  or  not.  They  never  pass  unseen  a  familiar  face  on  the  street ; 
they  are  never  oblivious  of  any  interesting  feature  or  sound  or 
object  in  the  earth  or  sky  about  them.  Their  power  of  attention 
is  always  on  the  alert,  not  by  conscious  effort,  but  by  natural  habit 
and  disposition.  Their  perceptive  faculties  may  be  said  to  be 
always  on  duty.  They  turn  to  the  outward  world  a  more  highly 
sensitized  mind  than  other  people.  The  things  that  pass  before 
them  are  caught  and  individualized  instantly.  If  they  visit  new 
countries,  they  see  the  characteristic  features  of  the  people  and 
scenery  at  once.  The  impression  is  never  blurred  or  confused. 
Their  powers  of  observation  suggest  the  sight  and  scent  of  wild 
animals;  only,  whereas  it  is  fear  that  sharpens  the  one,  it  is  love 
and  curiosity  that  sharpens  the  other.  The  mother  turkey  with 

*  From  Leaf  and  Tendril,  by  John  Burroughs.  Used  by  special  ar- 
rangement with  the  publishers,  Houghton  Mifflin  Company,  Boston. 


12  ENGLISH   COMPOSITION 

her  brood  sees  the  hawk  when  it  is  a  mere  speck  against  the  sky; 
she  is,  in  her  solicitude  for  her  young,  thinking  of  hawks,  and  is  on 
her  guard  against  them.  Fear  makes  keen  her  eye.  The  hunter 
does  not  see  the  hawk  till  his  attention  is  thus  called  to  it  by  the 
turkey,  because  his  interests  are  not  endangered;  but  he  outsees 
the  wild  creatures  of  the  plain  and  mountain,  —  the  elk,  the  ante- 
lope, and  the  mountain  sheep,  —  he  makes  it  his  business  to  look 
for  them,  and  his  eyes  carry  farther  than  do  theirs. 

We  may  see  coarsely  and  vaguely,  as  most  people  do, .noting 
only  masses  and  unusual  appearances,  or  we  may  see  finely  and 
discriminatingly,  taking  in  the  minute  and  the  specific.  In  a  col- 
lection of  stuffed  birds,  the  other  day,  I  observed  that  a  wood  thrush 
was  mounted  as  in  the  act  of  song,  its  open  beak  pointing  straight 
to  the  zenith.  The  taxidermist  had  not  seen  truly.  The  thrush 
sings  with  its  beak  but  slightly  elevated.  Who  has  not  seen  a  red 
squirrel  or  a  gray  squirrel  running  up  and  down  the  trunk  of  a  tree  ? 
But  probably  very  few  have  noticed  that  the  position  of  the  hind 
feet  is  the  reverse  in  the  one  case  from  what  it  is  in  the  other.  In 
descending  they  are  extended  to  the  rear,  the  toe-nails  hooking 
to  the  bark,  checking  and  controlling  the  fall.  In  most  pictures 
the  feet  are  shown  well  drawn  up  under  the  body  in  both  cases. 

People  who  discourse  pleasantly  and  accurately  about  the  birds 
and  flowers  and  external  nature  generally  are  not  invariably  good 
observers.  In  their  walks  do  they  see  anything  they  did  not  come 
out  to  see?  Is  there  any  spontaneous  or  unpremeditated  see- 
ing? Do  they  make  discoveries?  Any  bird  or  creature  may 
be  hunted  down,  any  nest  discovered,  if  you  lay  siege  to  it;  but 
to  find  what  you  are  not  looking  for,  to  catch  the  shy  winks  and 
gestures  on  every  side,  to  see  all  the  by-play  going  on  around 
you,  missing  no  significant  note  or  movement,  penetrating  every 
screen  with  your  eye-beams  —  that  is  to  be  an  observer;  that  is 
to  have  "  an  eye  practiced  like  a  blind  man's  touch,"  —  a  touch 
that  can  distinguish  a  white  horse  from  a  black,  —  a  detective  eye 
that  reads  the  faintest  signs.  When  Thoreau  was  at  Cape  Cod, 
he  noticed  that  the  horses  there  had  a  certain  muscle  in  their  hips 
inordinately  developed  by  reason  of  the  insecure  footing  in  the  ever- 
yielding  sand.  Thoreau's  vision  at  times  fitted  things  closely. 
During  some  great  fete  in  Paris,  the  Empress  Eugenie  and  Queen 


UNITY   IN    THE   WHOLE   COMPOSITION  13 

Victoria  were  both  present.  A  reporter  noticed  that  when  the 
royal  personages  came  to  sit  down,  Eugenie  looked  behind  her 
before  doing  so,  to  see  that  the  chair  was  really  there,  but  Victoria 
seated  herself  without  the  backward  glance,  knowing  there  must 
be  a  seat  ready;  there  always  had  been,  and  there  always  would 
be,  for  her.  The  correspondent  inferred  that  the  incident  showed 
the  difference  between  born  royalty  and  hastily  made  royalty. 
I  wonder  how  many  persons  in  that  vast  assembly  made  this  ob- 
servation ;  probably  very  few.  It  denoted  a  gift  for  seeing  things. 

If  our  powers  of  observation  were  quick  and  sure  enough,  no 
doubt  we  should  see  through  most  of  the  tricks  of  the  sleight-of- 
hand  man.  He  fools  us  because  his  hand  is  more  dexterous  than 
our  eye.  He  captures  our  attention,  and  then  commands  us  to  see 
only  what  he  wishes  us  to  see. 

In  the  field  of  natural  history,  things  escape  us  because  the 
actors  are  small,  and  the  stage  is  very  large  and  more  or  less  veiled 
and  obstructed.  The  movement  is  quick  across  a  background 
that  tends  to  conceal  rather  than  expose  it.  In  the  printed  page 
the  white  paper  plays  quite  as  important  a  part  as  the  type  and  the 
ink ;  but  the  book  of  nature  is  on  a  different  plan :  the  page  rarely 
presents  a  contrast  of  black  and  white,  or  even  black  and  brown, 
but  only  of  similar  tints,  gray  upon  gray,  green  upon  green,  or 
drab  upon  brown. 

By  a  close  observer  I  do  not  mean  a  minute,  cold-blooded 
specialist,  — 

"a  fingering  slave, 
One  who  would  peep  and  botanize 
Upon  his  mother's  grave,"  — 

but  a  man  who  looks  closely  and  steadily  at  nature,  and  notes  the 
individual  features  of  tree  and  rock  and  field,  and  allows  no  subtile 
flavor  of  the  night  or  day,  of  the  place  and  the  season,  to  escape 
him.  His  senses  are  so  delicate  that  in  his  evening  walk  he  feels 
the  warm  and  the  cool  streaks  in  the  air,  his  nose  detects  the  most 
fugitive  odors,  his  ears  the  most  furtive  sounds.  As  he  stands 
musing  in  the  April  twilight,  he  hears  that  fine,  elusive  stir  and 
rustle  made  by  the  angleworms  reaching  out  from  their  holes  for 
leaves  and  grasses ;  he  hears  the  whistling  wings  of  the  woodcock 


14  ENGLISH  COMPOSITION 

as  it  goes  swiftly  by  him  in  the  dusk ;  he  hears  the  call  of  the  killdee 
come  down  out  of  the  March  sky ;  he  hears  far  above  him  in  the 
early  morning  the  squeaking  cackle  of  the  arriving  blackbirds 
pushing  north;  he  hears  the  soft,  prolonged,  lulling  call  of  the 
little  owl  in  the  cedars  in  the  early  spring  twilight;  he  hears  at 
night  the  roar  of  the  distant  waterfall,  and  the  rumble  of  the  train 
miles  across  the  country  when  the  air  is  "hollow";  before  a  storm 
he  notes  how  distant  objects  stand  out  and  are  brought  near  on 
those  brilliant  days  that  we  call  "weather-breeders."  When  the 
mercury  is  at  zero  or  lower,  he  notes  how  the  passing  trains  hiss 
and  simmer  as  if  the  rails  or  wheels  were  red-hot.  He  reads  the 
subtile  signs  of  the  weather.  The  stars  at  night  forecast  the  com- 
ing day  to  him ;  the  clouds  at  evening  and  at  morning  are  a  sign. 
He  knows  there  is  the  wet-weather  diathesis  and  the  dry-weather 
diathesis,  or,  as  Goethe  said,  water  affirmative  and  water  negative, 
and  he  interprets  the  symptoms  accordingly.  He  is  keenly  alive 
to  all  outward  impressions.  When  he  descends  from  the  hill  in 
the  autumn  twilight,  he  notes  the  cooler  air  of  the  valley  like  a  lake 
about  him ;  he  notes  how,  at  other  seasons,  the  cooler  air  at  times 
settles  down  between  the  mountains  like  a  vast  body  of  water,  as 
shown  by  the  level  line  of  the  fog  or  the  frost  upon  the  trees. 

The  modern  man  looks  at  nature  with  an  eye  of  sympathy  and 
love  where  the  earlier  man  looked  with  an  eye  of  fear  and  super- 
stition. Hence  he  sees  more  closely  and  accurately;  science  has 
made  his  eye  steady  and  clear.  To  a  hasty  traveler  through  the 
land,  the  farms  and  country  homes  all  seem  much  alike,  but  to 
the  people  born  and  reared  there,  what  a  difference !  They  have 
read  the  fine  print  that  escapes  the  hurried  eye  and  that  is  so  full 
of  meaning.  Every  horizon  line,  every  curve  in  hill  or  valley, 
every  tree  and  rock  and  spring  run,  every  turn  in  the  road  and  vista 
in  the  landscape,  has  its  special  features  and  makes  its  own  im- 
pression. 

Scott  wrote  in  his  journal :  "  Nothing  is  so  tiresome  as  walking 
through  some  beautiful  scene  with  a  minute  philosopher,  a  botanist, 
or  a  pebble-gatherer,  who  is  eternally  calling  your  attention  from 
the  grand  features  of  the  natural  picture  to  look  at  grasses  and 
chuckie-stanes."  No  doubt  Scott's  large,  generous  way  of  looking 
at  things  kindles  the  imagination  and  touches  the  sentiments  more 


UNITY    IN   THE  WHOLE  COMPOSITION  15 

than  does  this  minute  way  of  the  specialist.  The  nature  that  Scott 
gives  us  is  like  the  air  and  the  water  that  all  may  absorb,  while 
what  the  specialist  gives  us  is  more  like  some  particular  element 
or  substance  that  only  the  few  can  appropriate.  But  Scott  had 
his  specialties,  too,  the  specialties  of  the  sportsman;  he  was  the 
first  to  see  the  hare's  eyes  as  she  sat  in  her  form,  and  he  knew  the 
ways  of  grouse  and  pheasants  and  trout.  The  ideal  observer  turns 
the  enthusiasm  of  the  sportsman  into  the  channels  of  natural 
history,  and  brings  home  a  finer  game  than  ever  fell  to  shot  or 
bullet.  He  too  has  an  eye  for  the  fox  and  the  rabbit  and  the  mi- 
grating water-fowl,  but  he  sees  them  with  loving  and  not  with 
murderous  eyes. 


CHAPTER  III 

COHERENCE  IN   THE  WHOLE  COMPOSITION 

LET  us  suppose  that  you  are  writing  a  theme  on  How  to  Play 
Baseball.  You  have  already  jotted  down  a  number  of  headings ; 
and,  according  to  the  principle  of  Unity,  you  have  crossed  out  such 
as  do  not  belong  there.  We  will  assume  that  the  resulting  outline 
is  something  like  this :  — 

1.  Foul-strike  rule. 

2.  Various  ways  in  which  men  can  be  put  out. 

3.  Object  of  the  game,  i.e.,  method  of  scoring. 

4.  Method  of  playing  by  innings. 

5.  Shape  and  details  of  diamond. 

6.  Number  and  petition  of  players. 

7.  Duties  of  the  umpire. 

Now  if  you  should  write  seven  paragraphs  in  the  same  order 
as  these  seven  headings  your  theme  would  be  anything  but  clear. 
You  have  observed  Unity;  but  something  else  besides  Unity  is 
needed.  It  is  true  that  a  theme  taken  up  in  the  above  order  might 
be  fairly  intelligible  to  you  or  to  any  one  who,  like  you,  knew  base- 
ball already;  but  you  must  always  assume  that  you  are  writing 
for  some  one  who  does  not  understand  your  subject.  In  real  life 
you  will  seldom  write  articles  explaining  to  a  man  what  he  already 
knows.  If  he  knew,  you  would  not  need  to  tell  him.  Your  actual 
writing  in  the  practical  work  of  life  will  consist  in  explaining  things 
to  people  who  wish  to  understand  them  but  as  yet  do  not,  and  who 
have  turned  to  you  for  help.  Now  assume  that  you  are  explaining 
baseball  to  some  one  so  ignorant  of  the  game  that  he  needs  to  have 
it  explained,  some  foreigner,  for  instance,  from  a  country  where 
the  game  is  unknown.  You  can  see  at  once  that  the  above  out- 
line would  throw  him  into  hopeless  confusion. 

You  begin  to  talk  about  the  foul-strike  rule.  He  cannot  follow 
16 


COHERENCE   IN   THE   WHOLE   COMPOSITION          17 

you,  for  he  does  not  know  the  meaning  of  either  "  foul "  or  "  strike." 
These  would  come  under  Topic  2,  and  you  have  not  taken  that 
up  yet.  So  your  foreigner  fails  to  get  anything  out  of  No.  i. 
If  you  come  next  to  the  way  in  which  men  are  put  out,  your  victim 
fares  no  better.  You  try  to  explain  that  a  man  is  put  out  if  he  is 
caught  off  his  base.  What  is  a  "  base  "?  Your  foreigner  doesn't 
know;  for  you  were  to  explain  this  under  No.  5,  and  you  haven't 
reached  that  yet.  You  would  meet  with  exactly  the  same  trouble 
under  No.  3,  the  methods  of  scoring.  You  try  to  explain  that 
every  run  around  the  bases  and  home  counts  one.  What  are 
the  "bases"  and  where  is  "home"?  All  these  things  belong 
under  No.  5;  and  as  you  have  not  gone  as  far  as  that  yet 
your  foreigner  is  hopelessly  in  the  dark.  He  probably  has  a 
wild  vision  in  his  mind  of  thirty  or  forty  men  rushing  around 
the  bases  of  the  grandstands  in  a  two-mile  race  for  the  home 
of  their  parents. 

Obviously,  the  whole  trouble  here  lies  in  the  fact  that  you  have 
taken  up  your  topics  in  the  wrong  order.  As  they  stand  now,  none 
of  the  earlier  ones  can  be  understood  until  the  later  ones  have  been 
explained  first.  If  you  change  the  order  and  take  the  topics  up 
in  the  following  manner,  your  theme  at  once  becomes  clear  from 
start  to  finish;  for  now  every  topic  paves  the  way  for  the  ones 
which  come  after:  — 

1.  Shape  and  details  of  the  diamond. 

2.  Object  of  the  game. 

3.  Number  and  position  of  players. 

4.  Method  of  playing  by  innings. 

5.  Various  ways  in  which  men  can  be  put  out. 

6.  Duties  of  the  umpire. 

7.  Foul-strike  rule. 

Now  just  as  Unity  consists  in  putting  into  a  theme  those  things 
and  those  only  which  belong  there,  so  Coherence  consists  in  ar- 
ranging these  topics  or  headings  in  that  order  which  will  make 
the  whole  theme  clearest  to  the  reader.  You  must  put  yourself 
in  his  place,  try  to  realize  what  he  does  and  does  not  know,  and 
lead  him  on  gradually  from  one  thing  to  another. 

There  is  no  cast-iron  rule  as  to  the  order  which  you  should  choose 
so  as  to  have  good  Coherence.  The  test  is  always  this,  whether 


1 8  ENGLISH   COMPOSITION 

or  not  your  order  is  one  which  your  reader  can  follow.  There  are, 
however,  three  forms  of  arrangement  which  are  commonly  in  use, 
and  a  writer  should  usually  take  one  of  these. 

The  first  of  these  arrangements  is  the  chronological;  that  is, 
it  takes  up  the  different  events  as  they  happened  in  order  of  time. 
This  is  the  simplest  method,  and,  where  it  can  be  used,  is  generally 
the  best.  For  instance,  if  you  were  telling  another  man  how  to 
build  a  canoe,  you  would  take  up  the  different  steps  in  your  theme 
one  after  the  other  in  the  same  order  which  you  would  follow  when 
building  a  canoe  yourself.  Frequently,  moreover,  good  writers 
explain  the  significance  of  some  great  movement  by  tracing  its 
growth  in  history.  It  would  be  impossible,  for  example,  to  make 
a  foreigner  understand  the  nature  of  our  negro  problem  unless  we 
traced  it  down  historically  and  pointed  out  how  the  present  situa- 
tion grew  out  of  past  events.  The  following  extracts  from  Izaak 
Walton  and  Cardinal  Newman  illustrate  different  applications 
of  this  method. 

THE  GROUND-BAIT 

IZAAK  WALTON 

You  shall  take  a  peck,  or  a  peck  and  a  half,  according  to  the 
greatness  of  the  stream  and  deepness  of  the  water  where  you  mean 
to  angle,  of  sweet  gross-ground  barley  malt,  and  boil  it  in  a  kettle ; 
one  or  two  warms  is  enough,  then  strain  it  through  a  bag  into  a 
tub,  the  liquor  whereof  hath  often  done  my  horse  much  good; 
and  when  the  bag  and  malt  is  near  cold,  take  it  down  to  the  water- 
side about  eight  or  nine  of  the  clock  in  the  evening,  and  not  before ; 
cast  in  two  parts  of  your  ground-bait,  squeezed  hard  between 
both  your  hands:  it  will  sink  presently  to  the  bottom,  and  be  sure 
it  may  rest  in  the  very  place  where  you  mean  to  angle :  if  the  stream 
run  hard  or  move  a  little,  cast  your  malt  in  handfuls  a  little  the 
higher  upwards  the  stream.  You  may,  between  your  hands,  close 
the  malt  so  fast  in  handfuls,  that  the  water  will  hardly  part  it  with 
the  fall. 

Your  ground  thus  baited  and  tackling  fitted,  leave  your  bag  with 
the  rest  of  your  tackling  and  ground-bait,  near  the  sporting-place 


COHERENCE   IN   THE   WHOLE  COMPOSITION         19 

all  night,  and  in  the  morning,  about  three  or  four  of  the  clock,  visit 
the  water-side,  but  not  too  near,  for  they  have  a  cunning  watchman, 
and  are  watchful  themselves  too. 

Then  gently  take  one  of  your  three  rods,  and  bait  your  hook ; 
casting  it  over  your  ground-bait,  and  gently  and  secretly  draw  it 
to  you  till  the  lead  rests  about  the  middle  of  the  ground-bait. 

Then  take  a  second  rod,  and  cast  in  about  a  yard  above,  and 
your  third  a  yard  below  the  first  rod;  and  stay  the  rods  in  the 
ground;  but  go  yourself  so  far  from  the  water-side,  that  you 
perceive  nothing  but  the  top  of  the  floats,  which  you  must  watch 
most  diligently.  Then  when  you  have  a  bite,  you  shall  perceive 
the  top  of  your  float  to  sink  suddenly  into  the  water:  yet,  never- 
theless, be  not  too  hasty  to  run  to  your  rods,  until  you  see  that 
the  line  goes  clear  away,  then  creep  to  the  water-side,  and  give 
as  much  line  as  you  possibly  can :  if  it  be  a  good  carp  or  bream, 
they  will  go  to  the  farther  side  of  the  river ;  then  strike  gently,  and 
hold  your  rod  at  a  bent  a  little  while ;  but  if  you  both  pull  together, 
you  are  sure  to  lose  your  game,  for  either  your  line,  or  hook,  or 
hold  will  break;  and  after  you  have  overcome  them,  they  will 
make  noble  sport,  and  are  very  shy  to  be  landed.  The  carp  is  far 
stronger  and  more  mettlesome  than  the  bream. 

Much  more  is  to  be  observed  in  this  kind  of  fish  and  fishing,  but 
it  is  far  better  for  experience  and  discourse  than  paper.  Only 
thus  much  is  necessary  for  you  to  know,  and  to  be  mindful  and 
careful  of,  that  if  the  pike  or  perch  do  breed  in  that  river,  they  will 
be  sure  to  bite  first,  and  must  first  be  taken.  And  for  the  most 
part  they  are  very  large;  and  will  repair  to  your  ground-bait,  not 
that  they  will  eat  of  it,  but  will  feed  and  sport  themselves  among 
the  young  fry  that  gather  about  and  hover  over  the  bait. 

The  way  to  discern  the  pike  and  to  take  him,  if  you  mistrust 
your  bream-hook  —  for  I  have  taken  a  pike  a  yard  long  several 
times  at  my  bream-hooks,  and  sometimes  he  hath  had  the  luck  to 
share  my  line  —  may  be  thus:  — 

Take  a  small  bleak,  or  roach,  or  gudgedn,  and  bait  it,  and  set  it 
alive  among  your  rods  two  feet  deep  from  the  cork,  with  a  little 
red  worm  on  the  point  of  the  hook;  then  take  a  few  crumbs  of 
white  bread,  or  some  of  the  ground-bait,  and  sprinkle  it  gently 
amongst  your  rods.  If  Mr.  Pike  be  there,  then  the  little  fish  will 


20  ENGLISH   COMPOSITION 

skip  out  of  the  water  at  his  appearance,  but  the  live-set  bait  is  sure 
to  be  taken. 

Thus  continue  your  sport  from  four  in  the  morning  till  eight, 
and  if  it  be  a  gloomy  windy  day  they  will  bite  all  day  long.  But 
this  is  too  long  to  stand  to  your  rods  at  one  place,  and  it  will  spoil 
your  evening  sport  that  day,  which  is  this:  — 

About  four  of  the  clock  in  the  afternoon  repair  to  your  baited 
place ;  and  as  soon  as  you  come  to  the  water-side,  cast  in  one-half 
of  the  rest  of  your  ground-bait,  and  stand  off;  then  whilst  the 
fish  are  gathering  together,  for  there  they  will  most  certainly  come 
for  their  supper,  you  may  take  a  pipe  of  tobacco ;  and  then  in  with 
your  three  rods,  as  in  the  morning:  you  will  find  excellent  sport 
that  evening  till  eight  of  the  clock ;  then  cast  in  the  residue  of  your 
ground-bait,  and  next  morning  by  four  of  the  clock  visit  them 
again  for  four  hours,  which  is  the  best  sport  of  all;  and  after  that, 
let  them  rest  till  you  and  your  friends  have  a  mind  to  more  sport. 

From  St.  James's-tide  until  Bartholomew-tide  is  the  best;  when 
they  have  had  all  the  summer's  food,  they  are  the  fattest. 

Observe,  lastly,  that  after  three  or  four  days'  fishing  together, 
your  game  will  be  very  shy  and  wary,  and  you  shall  hardly  get 
above  a  bite  or  two  at  a  baiting;  then  your  only  way  is  to  desist 
from  your  sport  about  two  or  three  days;  and  in  the  meantime, 
on  the  place  you  late  baited,  and  again  intend  to  bait,  you  shall 
take  a  tuft  of  green  but  short  grass  as  big  or  bigger  than  a  round 
trencher;  to  the  top  of  this  turf,  on  the  green  side,  you  shall,  with 
a  needle  and  green  thread,  fasten  one  by  one  as  many  little  red 
worms  as  will  near  cover  all  the  turf;  then  take  a  round  board 
or  trencher,  make  a  hole  in  the  middle  thereof,  and  through  the 
turf,  placed  on  the  board  or  trencher,  with  a  string  or  cord,  as  long 
as  is  fitting,  tied  to  a  pole,  let  it  down  to  the  bottom  of  the  water, 
for  the  fish  to  feed  upon  without  disturbance  about  two  or  three 
days;  and  after  that  you  have  drawn  it  away,  you  may  fall  to  and 
enjoy  your  former  recreation. 


COHERENCE   IN    THE   WHOLE   COMPOSITION         21 

DOWNFALL  AND   REFUGE    OF   ANCIENT   CIVILIZA- 
TION 

JOHN  HENRY   NEWMAN 

There  never  was,  perhaps,  in  the  history  of  this  tumultuous 
world,  prosperity  so  great,  so  far-spreading,  so  lasting,  as  that 
which  began  throughout  the  vast  Empire  of  Rome,  at  the  time 
when  the  Prince  of  Peace  was  born  into  it.  Preternatural  as  was 
the  tyranny  of  certain  of  the  Caesars,  it  did  not  reach  the  mass  of 
the  population;  and  the  reigns  of  the  Five  good  Emperors,  who 
succeeded  them,  are  proverbs  of  wise  and  gentle  government. 
The  sole  great  exception  to  this  universal  happiness  was  the  cruel 
persecution  of  the  Christians ;  the  sufferings  of  a  whole  world  fell 
and  were  concentrated  on  them,  and  the  children  of  heaven  were 
tormented,  that  the  sons  of  men  might  enjoy  their  revel.  Their 
Lord,  while  His  shadow  brought  peace  upon  earth,  foretold  that 
in  the  event  He  came  to  send  "not  peace  but  a  sword";  and  that 
sword  was  first  let  loose  upon  His  own  people.  "  Judgment  com- 
menced with  the  House  of  God;"  and  though,  as  time  went  on, 
it  left  Jerusalem  behind,  and  began  to  career  round  the  world 
and  sweep  the  nations  as  it  travelled  on,  nevertheless,  as  if  by  some 
paradox  of  Providence,  it  seemed  at  first,  that  truth  and  wretched- 
ness had  "  met  together,"  and  sin  and  prosperity  had  "  kissed  one 
another."  The  more  the  heathens  enjoyed  themselves,  the  more 
they  scorned,  hated,  and  persecuted  their  true  Light  and  true 
Peace.  They  persecuted  Him,  for  the  very  reason  that  they  had 
little  else  to  do;  happy  and  haughty,  they  saw  in  Him  the  sole 
drawback,  the  sole  exception,  the  sole  hindrance,  to  a  universal, 
a  continual  sunshine;  they  called  Him  "the  enemy  of  the  human 
race":  and  they  felt  themselves  bound,  by  their  loyalty  to  the 
glorious  and  immortal  memory  of  their  forefathers,  by  their  tra- 
ditions of  state,  and  their  duties  towards  their  children,  to  trample 
upon,  and,  if  they  could,  to  stifle  that  teaching,  which  was  des- 
tined to  be  the  life  and  mould  of  a  new  world. 

But  our  immediate  subject  here  is,  not  Christianity,  but  the 
world  that  passed  away;  and  before  it  passed,  it  had,  I  say,  a 
tranquillity  great  in  proportion  to  its  former  commotions.  Ages 


22  ENGLISH   COMPOSITION 

of  trouble  terminated  in  two  centuries  of  peace.  The  present 
crust  of  the  earth  is  said  to  be  the  result  of  a  long  war  of  elements 
and  to  have  been  made  so  beautiful,  so  various,  so  rich,  and  so 
useful,  by  the  discipline  of  revolutions,  by  earthquake  and  lightning, 
by  mountains  of  water  and  seas  of  fire;  and  so  in  like  manner,  it 
required  the  events  of  two  thousand  years,  the  multiform  fortunes 
of  tribes  and  populations,  the  rise  and  fall  of  kings,  the  mutual 
collision  of  states,  the  spread  of  colonies,  the  vicissitudes  and  the 
succession  of  conquests,  and  the  gradual  adjustment  and  settle- 
ment of  innumerous  discordant  ideas  and  interests,  to  carry  on 
the  human  race  to  unity,  and  to  shape  and  consolidate  the  great 
Roman  Power. 

And  when  once  those  unwieldy  materials  were  welded  together 
into  one  mass,  what  human  force  could  split  them  up  again? 
what  "hammer  of  the  earth"  could  shiver  at  a  stroke  a  solidity 
which  it  had  taken  ages  to  form?  Who  can  estimate  the  strength 
of  a  political  establishment,  which  has  been  the  slow  birth  of  time  ? 
and  what  establishment  ever  equalled  pagan  Rome?  Hence  has 
come  the  proverb,  "Rome  was  not  built  in  a  day:"  it  was  the 
portentous  solidity  of  its  power  that  forced  the  gazer  back  upon 
an  exclamation,  which  was  the  relief  of  his  astonishment,  as  being 
his  solution  of  the  prodigy.  And,  when  at  length  it  was  built, 
Rome,  so  long  in  building,  was  "Eternal  Rome":  it  had  been 
done  once  for  all ;  its  being  was  inconceivable  beforehand,  and 
its  not  being  was  inconceivable  afterwards.  It  had  been  a  miracle 
that  it  was  brought  to  be;  it  would  take  a  second  miracle  that  it 
should  cease  to  be.  To  remove  it  from  its  place  was  to  cast  a 
mountain  into  the  sea.  Look  at  the  Palatine  Hill,  penetrated, 
traversed,  cased  with  brickwork,  till  it  appears  a  work  of  man, 
not  of  nature;  run  your  eye  along  the  cliffs  from  Ostia  to  Ter- 
racina,  covered  with  the  debris  of  masonry;  gaze  around  the  bay 
of  Baiae,  whose  rocks  have  been  made  to  serve  as  the  foundations 
and  the  walls  of  palaces;  and  in  those  mere  remains,  lasting  to 
this  day,  you  will  have  a  type  of  the  moral  and  political  strength 
of  the  establishments  of  Rome.  Think  of  the  aqueducts  making 
for  the  imperial  city,  for  miles  across  the  plain ;  think  of  the  straight 
roads  stretching  off  again  from  that  one  center  to  the  ends  of  the 
earth;  consider  the  vast  territory  round  about  it  strewn  to  this 


COHERENCE  IN   THE   WHOLE  COMPOSITION         23 

day  with  countless  ruins ;  follow  in  your  imagination  its  suburbs, 
extending  along  its  roads,  for  as  much,  at  least  in  some  directions, 
as  forty  miles ;  and  number  up  its  continuous  mass  of  population, 
amounting,  as  grave  authors  say,  to  almost  six  million;  and  an- 
swer the  question,  how  was  Rome  ever  to  be  got  rid  of?  why 
was  it  not  to  progress  ?  why  was  it  not  to  progress  forever  ?  where 
was  that  ancient  civilization  to  end?  Such  were  the  questionings 
and  anticipations  of  thoughtful  minds,  not  specially  proud  or 
fond  of  Rome.  "The  world,"  says  Tertullian,  "has  more  of 
cultivation  every  day,  and  is  better  furnished  than  in  times  of  old. 
All  places  are  opened  up  now;  all  are  familiarly  known;  all  are 
scenes  of  business.  Smiling  farms  have  obliterated  the  notorious 
wilderness;  tillage  has  tamed  the  forest  land;  flocks  have  put  to 
flight  the  beasts  of  prey.  Sandy  tracts  are  sown;  rocks  are  put 
into  shape;  marshes  are  drained.  There  are  more  cities  now, 
than  there  were  cottages  at  one  time.  Islands  are  no  longer  wild ; 
the  crag  is  no  longer  frightful;  everywhere ' there  is  a  home,  a 
population,  a  state,  and  a  livelihood."  Such  was  the  prosperity, 
such  the  promise  of  progress  and  permanence,  in  which  the 
Assyrian,  the  Persian,  the  Greek,  the  Macedonian  conquests  had 
terminated. 

Education  had  gone  through  a  similar  course  of  difficulties,  and 
had  a  place  in  the  prosperous  result.  First,  carried  forth  upon 
the  wings  of  genius,  and  disseminated  by  the  energy  of  individual 
minds,  or  by  the  colonizing  missions  of  single  cities,  Knowledge 
was  irregularly  extended  to  and  fro  over  the  spacious  regions,  of 
which  the  Mediterranean  is  the  common  basin.  Introduced,  in 
course  of  time,  to  a  more  intimate  alliance  with  political  power,  it 
received  the  means,  at  the  date  of  Alexander  and  his  successors, 
both  of  its  cultivation  and  its  propagation.  It  was  formally  rec- 
ognized and  endowed  under  the  Ptolemies,  and  at  length  became 
a  direct  object  of  the  solicitude  of  the  government  under  the 
C.xsars.  It  was  honoured  and  dispensed  in  every  considerable 
city  of  the  Empire;  it  tempered  the  political  administration  of  the 
conquering  people;  it  civilized  the  manners  of  a  hundred  bar- 
barian conquests;  it  gradually  reconciled  uncongenial,  and  as- 
sociated distant  countries,  with  each  other;  while  it  had  ever 
ministered  to  the  fine  arts,  it  now  proceeded  to  subserve  the  useful. 


24  ENGLISH   COMPOSITION 

It  took  in  hand  the  reformation  of  the  world's  religion;  it  began 
to  harmonize  the  legends  of  discordant  worships;  it  purified  the 
mythology  by  making  it  symbolical;  it  interpreted  it,  and  gave  it 
a  moral,  and  explained  away  its  idolatry.  It  began  to  develop 
a  system  of  ethics,  it  framed  a  code  of  laws:  what  might  not  be 
expected  of  it,  as  time  went  on,  were  it  not  for  that  illiberal,  un- 
intelligible, fanatical,  abominable  sect  of  Galileans  ?  If  they  were 
allowed  to  make  play,  and  get  power,  what  might  not  happen? 
There  again  Christians  were  in  the  way,  as  hateful  to  the  philos- 
opher, as  to  the  statesman.  Yet  in  truth  it  was  not  in  this  quarter 
that  the  peril  of  civilization  lay :  it  lay  in  a  very  different  direction, 
over  against  the  Empire  to  the  North  and  North-east,  in  a  black 
cloud  of  inexhaustible  barbarian  populations :  and  when  the  storm 
mounted  overhead  and  broke  upon  the  earth,  it  was  those  scorned 
and  detested  Galileans,  and  none  but  they,  the  men-haters  and 
God-despisers,  who,  returning  good  for  evil,  housed  and  lodged 
the  scattered  remnants  of  that  old  world's  wisdom,  which  had  so 
persecuted  them,  went  forth  valiantly  to  meet  the  savage  destroyer, 
tamed  him  without  arms,  and  became  the  founders  of  a  new  and 
higher  civilization.  Not  a  man  in  Europe  now,  who  talks  bravely 
against  the  Church,  but  owes  it  to  the  Church,  that  he  can  talk 
at  all. 

But  what  was  to  be  the  process,  what  the  method,  what  the  in- 
struments, what  the  place,  for  sheltering  the  treasures  of  ancient 
intellect  during  the  convulsion,  of  bridging  over  the  abyss,  and  of 
linking  the  old  world  to  the  new?  In  spite  of  the  consolidation 
of  its  power,  Rome  was  to  go,  as  all  things  human  go,  and  vanish 
forever.  In  the  words  of  inspiration,  "  Great  Babylon  came  in 
remembrance  before  God,  and  every  island  fled  away,  and  the 
mountains  were  not  found."  All  the  fury  of  the  elements  was 
directed  against  it;  and,  as  a  continual  dropping  wears  away  the 
stone,  so  blow  after  blow,  and  revolution  after  revolution,  sufficed 
at  last  to  heave  up,  and  hurl  down,  and  smash  into  fragments,  the 
noblest  earthly  power  that  ever  was.  First  came  the  Goth,  then 
the  Hun,  and  then  the  Lombard.  The  Goth  took  possession,  but 
he  was  of  noble  nature,  and  soon  lost  his  barbarism.  The  Hun 
came  next;  he  was  irreclaimable,  but  did  not  stay.  The  Lombard 
kept  both  his  savageness  and  his  ground ;  he  appropriated  to  him- 


COHERENCE  IN   THE   WHOLE  COMPOSITION         25 

self  the  territory,  not  the  civilization  of  Italy,  fierce  as  the  Hun, 
and  powerful  as  the  Goth,  the  most  tremendous  scourge  of  Heaven. 
In  his  dark  presence  the  poor  remains  of  Greek  and  Roman 
splendour  died  away,  and  the  world  went  more  rapidly  to  ruin, 
material  and  moral,  than  it  was  advancing  from  triumph  to  triumph 
in  the  time  of  Tertullian.  Alas !  the  change  between  Rome  in  the 
hey-day  of  her  pride,  and  in  the  agony  of  her  judgment !  Tertullian 
writes  while  she  is  exalted;  Pope  Gregory  when  she  is  in  humilia- 
tion. He  was  delivering  homilies  upon  the  Prophet  Ezekiel,  when 
the  news  came  to  Rome  of  the  advance  of  the  Lombards  upon  the 
city,  and  in  the  course  of  them  he  several  times  burst  out  into 
lamentations  at  the  news  of  miseries,  which  eventually  obliged 
him  to  cut  short  his  exposition. 

"Sights  and  sounds  of  war,"  he  says,  "meet  us  on  every  side. 
The  cities  are  destroyed;  the  military  stations  broken  up;  the 
land  devastated;  the  earth  depopulated.  No  one  remains  in  the 
country ;  scarcely  any  inhabitants  in  the  towns ;  yet  even  the  poor 
remains  of  human  kind  are  still  smitten  daily  and  without  inter- 
mission. Before  our  eyes  some  are  carried  away  captive,  some 
mutilated,  some  murdered.  She  herself,  who  once  was  mistress 
of  the  world,  we  behold  how  Rome  fares:  worn  down  by  manifold 
and  incalculable  distresses,  the  bereavement  of  citizens,  the  attack 
of  foes,  the  reiteration  of  overthrows,  where  is  her  senate  ?  where 
are  her  people?  We,  the  few  survivors,  are  still  the  daily  prey 
of  the  sword  and  of  other  innumerable  tribulations.  Where  are 
they  who  in  a  former  day  revelled  in  her  glory  ?  where  is  their  pomp, 
their  pride,  their  frequent  and  immoderate  joy  ?  —  youngsters, 
young  men  of  the  world,  congregated  here  from  every  quarter, 
where  they  aimed  at  a  secular  advancement.  Now  no  one  hastens 
up  to  her  for  preferment ;  and  so  it  is  with  other  cities  also ;  some 
places  are  laid  waste  by  pestilence,  others  are  depopulated  by  the 
sword,  others  are  tormented  by  famine,  and  others  are  swallowed 
up  by  earthquakes." 

These  words,  far  from  being  a  rhetorical  lament,  are  but  a 
meager  statement  of  some  of  the  circumstances  of  a  desolation,  in 
which  the  elements  themselves,  as  St.  Gregory  intimates,  as  well 
as  the  barbarians,  took  a  principal  part.  In  the  dreadful  age  of 
that  great  Pope,  a  plague  spread  from  the  lowlands  of  Egypt  to  the 


26  ENGLISH   COMPOSITION 

Indies  on  the  one  hand,  along  Africa  across  to  Spain  on  the  other, 
till,  reversing  its  course,  it  reached  the  eastern  extremity  of  Europe. 
For  fifty-two  years  did  it  retain  possession  of  the  infected  atmos- 
phere, and,  in  Constantinople,  during  three  months,  five  thousand, 
and  at  length  ten  thousand  persons,  are  said  to  have  died  daily. 
Many  cities  of  the  East  were  left  without  inhabitants ;  and  in  several 
districts  of  Italy  there  were  no  labourers  to  gather  either  harvest  or 
vintage.  A  succession  of  earthquakes  accompanied  for  years  this 
heavy  calamity.  Constantinople  was  shaken  for  above  forty  days. 
Two  hundred  and  fifty  thousand  persons  are  said  to  have  perished 
in  the  earthquake  of  Antioch,  crowded,  as  the  city  was,  with  strangers 
for  the  festival  of  the  Ascension.  Berytus,  the  Eastern  school  of 
Roman  jurisprudence,  called,  from  its  literary  and  scientific  im- 
portance, the  eye  of  Phoenicia,  shared  a  similar  fate.  These,  how- 
ever, were  but  local  visitations.  Cities  are  indeed  the  homes  of 
civilization,  but  the  wide  earth,  with  her  hill  and  dale,  open  plain 
and  winding  valley,  is  its  refuge.  The  barbarian  invaders,  spread- 
ing over  the  country,  like  a  flight  of  locusts,  did  their  best  to  destroy 
every  fragment  of  the  old  world,  and  every  element  of  revival. 
Twenty-nine  public  libraries  had  been  founded  at  Rome;  but, 
had  these  been  destroyed,  as  in  Antioch,  or  Berytus,  by  earthquakes 
or  by  conflagration,  yet  a  large  aggregate  of  books  would  have  still 
survived.  Such  collections  had  become  a  fashion  and  a  luxury 
in  the  latter  Empire,  and  every  colony  and  municipium,  every 
larger  temple,  every  pnetorium,  the  baths,  and  the  private  villas, 
had  their  respective  libraries.  When  the  ruin  swept  across  the 
country,  and  these  various  libraries  were  destroyed,  then  the 
patient  monks  had  begun  again,  in  their  quiet  dwellings,  to  bring 
together,  to  arrange,  to  transcribe  and  to  catalogue;  but  then 
again  the  new  visitation  of  the  Lombards  fell,  and  Monte  Cassino, 
the  famous  metropolis  of  the  Benedictines,  not  to  mention  monas- 
teries of  lesser  note,  was  sacked  and  destroyed. 

Truly  was  Christianity  revenged  on  that  ancient  civilization  for 
the  persecutions  which  it  had  inflicted  on  Christianity.  Man 
ceased  from  the  earth,  and  his  works  with  him.  The  arts  of  life, 
architecture,  engineering,  agriculture,  were  alike  brought  to  nought. 
The  waters  were  let  out  over  the  face  of  the  country ;  arable  and 
pasture  lands  were  drowned;  landmarks  disappeared.  Pools  and 


COHERENCE   IN    THE    WHOLE   COMPOSITION          27 

lakes  intercepted  the  thoroughfares;  whole  districts  became 
pestilential  marshes;  the  strong  stream,  or  the  abiding  morass, 
sapped  and  obliterated  the  very  site  of  cities.  Here  the  mountain 
torrent  cut  a  channel  in  the  plain;  there  it  elevated  ridges  across  it; 
elsewhere  it  disengaged  masses  of  rock  and  earth  in  its  precipitous 
passage,  and,  hurrying  them  on,  left  them  as  islands  in  the  midst 
of  the  flood.  Forests  overspread  the  land,  in  rivalry  of  the  waters, 
and  became  the  habitation  of  wild  animals,  of  wolves,  and  even 
bears.  The  dwindled  race  of  man  lived  in  scattered  huts  of  mud, 
where  best  they  might  avoid  marauder,  and  pestilence,  and  inunda- 
tion ;  or  clung  together  for  mutual  defence  in  cities,  where  wretched 
cottages,  on  the  ruins  of  marble  palaces,  overbalanced  the  security 
of  numbers  by  the  frequency  of  conflagration. 

In  such  a  state  of  things,  the  very  mention  of  education  was  a 
mockery,  the  very  aim  and  effort  to  exist  was  occupation  enough 
for  a  mind  and  body.  The  heads  of  the  Church  bewailed  a  uni- 
versal ignorance,  which  they  could  not  remedy;  it  was  a  great 
thing  that  schools  remained  sufficient  for  clerical  education,  and 
this  education  was  only  sufficient,  as  Pope  Agatho  informs  us,  to 
enable  them  to  hand  on  the  traditions  of  the  Fathers,  without 
scientific  exposition  or  polemical  defence.  In  that  Pope's  time, 
the  great  Council  of  Rome,  in  its  letter  to  the  Emperor  of  the  East, 
who  had  asked  for  Episcopal  legates  of  correct  life  and  scientific 
knowledge  of  the  Scriptures,  made  answer,  that,  if  by  science  was 
meant  knowledge  of  revealed  truth,  the  demand  could  be  supplied; 
not,  if  more  was  required;  "since,"  continue  the  Fathers,  "in 
these  parts,  the  fury  of  our  various  heathen  foes  is  ever  breaking 
out,  whether  in  conflicts,  or  in  inroads  and  rapine.  Hence  our  life 
is  simply  one  of  anxiety  of  soul  and  labour  of  body ;  of  anxiety, 
because  we  are  in  the  midst  of  the  heathen;  of  labour,  because  the 
maintenance,  which  used  to  come  to  us  as  ecclesiastics,  is  at  an 
end;  so  that  faith  is  our  only  substance,  to  live  in  its  possession 
our  highest  glory,  to  die  for  it  our  eternal  gain."  The  very  pro- 
fession of  the  clergy  is  the  knowledge  of  letters :  if  even  these  lost 
it,  would  others  retain  it  in  their  miseries,  to  whom  it  was  no  duty  ? 
And  what  then  was  the  hope  and  prospect  of  the  world  in  the  gen- 
erations which  were  to  follow? 

"What  is  coming?  what  is  to  be  the  end?"     Such  was  the 


28  ENGLISH   COMPOSITION 

question,  that  weighed  so  heavily  upon  the  august  line  of  Pontiffs, 
upon  whom  rested  "the  solicitude  of  all  the  churches,"  and  whose 
failure  in  vigilance  and  decision  in  that  miserable  time  would 
have  been  the  loss  of  ancient  learning,  and  the  indefinite  postpone- 
ment of  new  civilization.  What  could  be  done  for  art,  science, 
and  philosophy,  when  towns  had  been  burned  up,  and  country 
devastated?  In  such  distress,  islands,  or  deserts,  or  the  mountain- 
top  have  commonly  been  the  retreat,  to  which  in  the  last  instance 
the  hopes  of  humanity  have  been  conveyed.  Thus  the  monks  of 
the  fourth  century  had  preserved  the  Catholic  faith  from  the 
tyranny  of  Arianism  in  the  Egyptian  desert ;  and  so  the  inhabitants 
of  Lombardy  had  taken  refuge  from  the  Huns  in  the  shallows  of  the 
Adriatic ;  so  too  just  then  the  Christian  Goths  were  biding  their 
time  to  revenge  themselves  on  the  Saracens,  in  the  mountains  of 
Asturias.  Where  should  the  Steward  of  the  Household  deposit 
the  riches,  which  his  predecessors  had  inherited  from  Jew  and 
heathen,  the  things  old  as  well  as  new,  in  an  age,  in  which  each 
succeeding  century  threatened  them  with  woes  worse  than  the 
centuries  which  had  gone  before !  Pontiff  after  Pontiff  looked 
out  from  the  ruins  of  the  Imperial  City  which  were  to  be  his  ever- 
lasting, ever-restless  throne,  if  perchance  some  place  was  to  be 
found,  more  tranquil  than  his  own,  where  the  hope  of  the  future 
might  be  lodged.  They  looked  over  the  Earth,  towards  great 
cities  and  far  provinces,  and  whether  it  was  Gregory,  or  Vitalian, 
or  Agatho,  or  Leo,  their  eyes  had  all  been  drawn  in  one  direction, 
and  fixed  upon  one  quarter  for  that  purpose,  —  not  to  the  East, 
from  which  the  light  of  knowledge  had  arisen,  not  to  the  \Vest, 
whither  it  had  spread,  —  but  to  the  North. 

The  second  arrangement  for  Coherence  is  from  the  simple  to 
the  complex.  The  outline  on  baseball  already  given  illustrates 
this  method.  Here  you  start  with  the  most  simple  and  obvious 
matters  on  which  the  others  depend,  and  gradually  lead  up  from 
these  to  the  more  complicated  part  of  your  subject.  For  example, 
if  you  were  explaining  the  mechanism  of  a  modern  battle-ship,  you 
would  start  with  the  size  and  shape  of  the  main  hull,  which  is  a 
comparatively  simple  matter.  Next  you  would  take  up  the  location 
of  guns  and  armor,  which  would  be  a  little  harder  to  follow  but 


COHERENCE   IN    THE  WHOLE   COMPOSITION          29 

still  not  very  difficult.  The  complicated  engines,  etc.,  which 
would  be  the  least  easy  to  understand,  should  come  last.  Ac- 
cording to  this  arrangement  your  reader's  knowledge  of  the  subject 
is  steadily  increasing  as  he  reads ;  consequently,  while  he  can  grasp 
only  simple  points  at  the  beginning,  he  can  master  hard  ones  at 
the  end.  A  slight  variation  of  this  "simple  to  complex"  order  is 
found  in  going  from  the  known  to  the  unknown.  Frequently  you 
take  up  a  subject  about  which  your  readers  already  know  some- 
thing, but  not  all.  Here  you  would  naturally  start  with  the  things 
that  they  already  understand  fairly  well,  then  go  on  to  that  about 
which  they  had  known  a  very  little,  and  finish  with  the  things 
about  which  before  they  had  known  nothing  at  all.  This,  for 
instance,  would  be  your  order  if  you  were  explaining  the  fine 
points  of  some  game  to  a  friend  who  had  seen  it  played  but  had 
never  mastered  it.  The  following  extracts  illustrate  various 
modifications  of  the  "simple  to  complex"  arrangement. 


METHOD    OF    SCIENTIFIC    INVESTIGATION 

T.   H.   HUXLEY 

The  method  of  scientific  investigation  is  nothing  but  the  ex- 
pression of  the  necessary  mode  of  working  of  the  human  mind. 
It  is  simply  the  mode  at  which  all  phenomena  are  reasoned  about, 
rendered  precise  and  exact.  There  is  no  more  difference,  but  there 
is  just  the  same  kind  of  difference,  between  the  mental  operations 
of  a  man  of  science  and  those  of  an  ordinary  person,  as  there  is 
between  the  operations  and  methods  of  a  baker  or  of  a  butcher 
weighing  out  his  goods  in  common  scales,  and  the  operations  of 
a  chemist  in  performing  a  difficult  and  complex  analysis  by  means 
of  his  balance  and  finely-graduated  weights.  It  is  not  that  the 
action  of  the  scales  in  the  one  case,  and  the  balance  in  the  other, 
differ  in  the  principles  of  their  construction  or  manner  of  working ; 
but  the  beam  of  one  is  set  on  an  infinitely  finer  axis  than  the  other, 
and  of  course  turns  by  the  addition  of  a  much  smaller  weight. 

You  will  understand  this  better,  perhaps,  if  I  give  you  some 
familiar  example.  You  have  all  heard  it  repeated,  I  dare  say,  that 


30  ENGLISH  COMPOSITION 

men  of  science  work  by  means  of  Induction  and  Deduction,  and 
that  by  the  help  of  these  operations,  they,  in  a  sort  of  sense,  wring 
from  Nature  certain  other  things,  which  are  called  Natural  Laws, 
and  Causes,  and  that  out  of  these,  by  some  cunning  skill  of  their 
own,  they  build  up  Hypotheses  and  Theories.  And  it  is  imagined 
by  many,  that  the  operations  of  the  common  mind  can  be  by  no 
means  compared  with  these  processes,  and  that  they  have  to  be 
acquired  by  a  sort  of  special  apprenticeship  to  the  craft.  To  hear 
all  these  large  words,  you  would  think  that  the  mind  of  a  man  of 
science  must  be  constituted  differently  from  that  of  his  fellow- 
men  ;  but  if  you  will  not  be  frightened  by  terms,  you  will  discover 
that  you  are  quite  wrong,  and  that  all  these  terrible  apparatus  are 
being  used  by  yourselves  every  day  and  every  hour  of  your  lives. 

There  is  a  well-known  incident  in  one  of  Moliere's  plays,  where 
the  author  makes  the  hero  express  unbounded  delight  on  being 
told  that  he  had  been  talking  prose  during  the  whole  of  his  life. 
In  the  same  way,  I  trust  that  you  will  take  comfort,  and  be  de- 
lighted with  yourselves,  on  the  discovery  that  you  have  been 
acting  on  the  principles  of  inductive  and  deductive  philosophy 
during  the  same  period.  Probably  there  is  not  one  here  who  has 
not  in  the  course  of  the  day  had  occasion  to  set  in  motion  a  com- 
plex train  of  reasoning,  of  the  very  same  kind,  though  differing 
of  course  in  degree,  as  that  which  a  scientific  man  goes  through  in 
tracing  the  causes  of  natural  phenomena. 

A  very  trivial  circumstance  will  serve  to  exemplify  this.  Sup- 
pose you  go  into  a  fruiterer's  shop,  wanting  an  apple,  —  you  take 
up  one,  and,  on  biting  it,  you  find  it  is  sour;  you  look  at  it,  and 
see  that  it  is  hard  and  green.  You  take  up  another  one,  and  that 
too  is  hard,  green,  and  sour.  The  shopman  offers  you  a  third; 
but,  before  biting  it,  you  examine  it,  and  find  that  it  is  hard  and 
green,  and  you  immediately  say  that  you  will  not  have  it,  as  it 
must  be  sour,  like  those  that  you  have  already  tried. 

Nothing  can  be  more  simple  than  that,  you  think ;  but  if  you 
will  take  the  trouble  to  analyze  and  trace  out  into  its  logical  ele- 
ments what  has  been  done  by  the  mind,  you  will  be  greatly  sur- 
prised. In  the  first  place,  you  have  performed  the  operation  of 
Induction.  You  found  that,  in  two  experiences,  hardness  and 
greenness  in  apples  went  together  with  sourness.  It  was  so  in 


COHERENCE  IN    THE   WHOLE  COMPOSITION         31 

the  first  case,  and  it  was  confirmed  by  the  second.  True,  it  is  a 
very  small  basis,  but  still  it  is  enough  to  make  an  induction  from ; 
you  generalize  the  facts,  and  you  expect  to  find  sourness  in  apples 
where  you  get  hardness  and  greenness.  You  found  upon  that 
a  general  law,  that  all  hard  and  green  apples  are  sour;  and  that, 
so  far  as  it  goes,  is  a  perfect  induction.  Well,  having  got  your 
natural  law  in  this  way,  when  you  are  offered  another  apple  which 
you  find  is  hard  and  green,  you  say,  "All  hard  and  green  apples 
are  sour;  this  apple  is  hard  and  green,  therefore  this  apple  is  sour." 
That  train  of  reasoning  is  what  logicians  call  a  syllogism,  and 
has  all  its  various  parts  and  terms,  —  its  major  premiss,  its  minor 
premiss,  and  its  conclusion.  And,  by  the  help  of  further  reasoning, 
which,  if  drawn  out,  would  have  to  be  exhibited  in  two  or  three 
other  syllogisms,  you  arrive  at  your  final  determination,  "I  will 
not  have  that  apple."  So  that,  you  see,  you  have,  in  the  first  place, 
established  a  law  by  Induction,  and  upon  that  you  have  founded 
a  Deduction,  and  reasoned  out  the  special  conclusion  of  the  par- 
ticular case.  Well  now,  suppose,  having  got  your  law,  that  at  some 
time  afterwards  you  are  discussing  the  qualities  of  apples  with 
a  friend :  you  will  say  to  him,  "  It  is  a  very  curious  thing,  —  but 
I  find  that  all  hard  and  green  apples  are  sour ! "  Your  friend  says 
to  you,  "But  how  do  you  know  that?"  You  at  once  reply,  "Oh, 
because  I  have  tried  them  over  and  over  again,  and  have  always 
found  them  to  be  so."  Well,  if  we  were  talking  science  instead 
of  common  sense,  we  should  call  that  an  Experimental  Verifica- 
tion. And,  if  still  opposed,  you  go  further,  and  say,  "  I  have  heard 
from  the  people  in  Somersetshire  and  Devonshire,  where  a  large 
number  of  apples  are  grown,  that  they  have  observed  the  same 
thing.  It  is  also  found  to  be  the  case  in  Normandy,  and  in  North 
America.  In  short,  I  find  it  to  be  the  universal  experience  of 
mankind  wherever  attention  has  been  directed  to  the  subject." 
Whereupon,  your  friend,  unless  he  is  a  very  unreasonable  man, 
agrees  with  you,  and  is  convinced  that  you  are  quite  right  in  the 
conclusion  you  have  drawn.  He  believes,  although  perhaps  he 
does  not  know  he  believes  it,  that  the  more  extensive  Verifications 
are,  —  that  the  more  frequently  experiments  have  been  made, 
and  results  of  the  same  kind  arrived  at,  —  that  the  more  varied 
the  conditions  under  which  the  same  results  are  attained,  the  more 


32  ENGLISH   COMPOSITION 

certain  is  the  ultimate  conclusion,  and  he  disputes  the  question 
no  further.  He  sees  that  the  experiment  has  been  tried  under  all 
sorts  of  conditions,  as  to  time,  place,  and  people,  with  the  same 
result;  and  he  says  with  you,  therefore,  that  the  law  you  have 
laid  down  must  be  a  good  one,  and  he  must  believe  it. 

In  science  we  do  the  same  thing ;  —  the  philosopher  exercises 
precisely  the  same  faculties,  though  in  a  much  more  delicate  man- 
ner. In  scientific  inquiry  it  becomes  a  matter  of  duty  to  expose 
a  supposed  law  to  every  possible  kind  of  verification,  and  to  take 
care,  moreover,  that  this  is  done  intentionally,  and  not  left  to  a 
mere  accident,  as  in  the  case  of  the  apples.  And  in  science,  as  in 
common  life,  our  confidence  in  a  law  is  in  exact  proportion  to  the 
absence  of  variation  in  the  result  of  our  experimental  verifications. 
For  instance,  if  you  let  go  your  grasp  of  an  article  you  may  have 
in  your  hand,  it  will  immediately  fall  to  the  ground.  That  is  a 
very  common  verification  of  one  of  the  best  established  laws  of 
nature  —  that  of  gravitation.  The  method  by  which  men  of 
science  establish  the  existence  of  that  law  is  exactly  the  same  as 
that  by  which  we  have  established  the  trivial  proposition  about 
the  sourness  of  hard  and  green  apples.  But  we  believe  it  in  such 
an  extensive,  thorough,  and  unhesitating  manner  because  the  uni- 
versal experience  of  mankind  verifies  it,  and  we  can  verify  it  our- 
selves at  any  time ;  and  that  is  the  strongest  possible  foundation 
on  which  any  natural  law  can  rest. 

THE  CONSTRUCTION  OF  UNDERGROUND 
TUNNELS1 

BENJAMIN    BROOKS 

Sir  Marc  Brunei  appeared  early  in  the  last  century  to  the  city 
of  London  after  that  town  had  overflowed  its  bridges  for  genera- 
tions, and  he  presented  a  scheme  for  driving  a  tunnel  under  the 
Thames  through  the  comparatively  soft  clay.  Everybody  knew 
that  so  large  a  hole  as  a  tunnel  could  not  be  dug  and  kept  open 
under  the  Thames;  but  if  a  short,  portable  piece  of  completed 
tunnel  could  be  continuously  pushed  ahead  and  added  to  from 

1  From  The  Web-foot  Engineer. 


COHERENCE  IN    THE   WHOLE  COMPOSITION         33 

behind,  what  then?  He  conceived  a  steel  contrivance  just  a 
trifle  bigger  around  than  the  tunnel  was  to  be,  shaped  in  about  the 
proportions  of  a  baking-powder  can,  with  no  bottom  and  no  top, 
but  having  a  diaphragm  or  partition  across  the  middle  of  it.  When 
this  had  been  sunk  down  and  started  on  the  line  of  the  tunnel,  the 
forward  part  of  the  shell  would  hold  up  the  overhanging  mud 
sufficiently  so  that  men  could  work  through  little  doorways  in  the 
partition,  digging  the  earth  from  in  front  and  loading  it  into  cars  to 
be  carried  out  behind;  and  at  the  same  time,  on  the  interior  of  the 
after  portion,  other  men  could  bolt  together  the  steel  or  iron  sec- 
tions of  the  tunnel  lining. 

A  short  section  having  been  completed  in  this  manner,  the  whole 
machine  could  push  itself  ahead  with  a  kick  —  that  is,  with  power- 
ful hydraulic  jacks  pressing  against  the  completed  part  of  the 
tunnel.  Imagine  having  forced  a  large,  empty  sugar  barrel  hori- 
zontally into  a  bank  of  earth,  first  having  knocked  out  both  heads. 
By  crawling  into  the  barrel  a  man  could,  with  considerable  dis- 
comfort and  perspiration,  dig  away  the  earth  some  little  distance 
in  advance  of  the  barrel,  and,  given  something  to  kick  against,  he 
could  push  himself  and  his  barrel  farther  into  the  cavity  he  had 
dug.  Now,  if  another  man  were  to  hand  him  the  necessary  staves 
and  internal  hoops,  he  could  build  a  second  and  slightly  smaller 
barrel  partly  inside  of  the  first  one.  He  might  then  do  more 
digging  and  more  pushing  ahead,  until  he  had  proceeded  far 
enough  to  build  a  second  small  barrel  and  fit  it  tightly  to  the  end 
of  the  first  small  barrel.  In  this  way,  since  a  small  barrel  always 
lapped  partly  inside  of  the  big  one  in  which  he  worked,  the  earth 
could  never  cave  in  and  cut  him  off  from  daylight;  and  so  long 
as  he  was  provided  with  staves,  hoops,  food,  water,  and  air,  he 
could  burrow  on  indefinitely. 

Such,  in  a  nutshell,  was  the  idea  of  this  web-foot 1  engineer, 
Sir  Marc  Brunei,  in  1824  —  the  simplest,  best,  most  ingenious  idea 
that  has  occurred  to  engineers  in  many  years.  The  great  cities 
had  waited  for  it  so  long  that  they  accepted  it  ravenously.  Tunnels 
burrowed  under  the  Thames,  the  Seine,  the  Hudson.  Poor  old 
tunnels  that  had  set  out  without  it  and  gone  bankrupt  at  the 

1  The  phrase  "  web-foot   engineer  "  here  means  an  engineer  who  plans 
underground  work,  tunnels,  foundations,  etc. 
D 


34  EXGLISH   COMPOSITION 

discouraging  rate  of  a  few  inches  a  week,  took  on  a  new  lease  of 
life  and  set  out  again  at  many  feet  a  day ;  and  they  are  going  yet  — 
all  day  and  all  night,  steadily,  blindly,  but  surely,  on  under  the 
rivers  to  set  the  cities  free. 

Of  course  the  original  idea  has  to  be  modified  somewhat  for 
every  particular  tunnel  and  for  each  variety  of  mud.  If  the  mud 
is  full  of  gravel  and  boulders,  the  forward  half  of  the  machine  has 
to  be  worked  under  compressed  air  to  balance  the  pressure  of 
earth  and  water;  and  the  workers  have  to  be  provided  with  safety 
locks  in  case  of  a  sudden  inrush  of  water.  If  you  invert  a  glass 
in  a  bowl  of  water  and  press  it  down,  the  water  will  not  rise  to 
any  extent  in  the  glass.  On  this  principle,  little  inverted  steel 
pockets  are  made  for  the  men  to  retreat  into  in  case  of  accident 
and  keep  their  heads  above  water  until  assistance  can  come. 

If,  on  the  other  hand,  the  earth  is  tough  and  regular,  instead  of 
being  dug  out  by  miners  the  way  is  cut  automatically  with  a  large 
rotary  cutter.  If  it  is  softer  still  and  too  mushy  to  be  counter- 
balanced by  compressed  air,  then  the  top  of  the  forward  shield 
is  made  very  long,  so  as  to  let  the  mud  cave  in  on  a  long  slant  and 
still  not  fall  from  above.  When  it  gets  to  the  consistency  of  por- 
ridge, as  it  is  at  the  bottom  of  the  Hudson,  it  is  found  possible  to 
force  the  shield  ahead  without  any  digging,  merely  letting  the  mud 
ooze  through  the  partition  doors  and  shoveling  it  into  the  cars. 

BOOKS ' 

A.    C.    BENSON 

It  is  a  great  problem,  as  life  goes  on,  as  duties  grow  more  de- 
fined, and  as  one  becomes  more  and  more  conscious  of  the  short- 
ness of  life,  what  the  duty  of  a  cultivated  and  open-minded  man 
is  with  regard  to  general  reading.  I  am  inclined  to  think  that  as 
one  grows  older  one  may  read  less;  it  is  impossible  to  keep  up 
with  the  vast  output  of  literature,  and  it  is  hard  enough  to  find 

1  A  portion  of  the  essay  on  Books  in  A.  C.  Benson's  From  a  College 
Window:  New  York  and  London,  G.  P.  Putnam's  Sons.  Used  by  the 
kind  permission  of  the  publishers. 


COHERENCE   IN    THE    WHOLE   COMPOSITION 


35 


time  to  follow  even  the  one  or  two  branches  in  which  one  is  specially 
interested.  Almost  the  only  books  which,  I  think,  it  is  a  duty  to 
read,  are  the  lives  of  great  contemporaries;  one  gets  thus  to  have 
an  idea  of  what  is  going  on  in  the  world,  and  to  realise  it  from 
different  points  of  view.  New  fiction,  new  poetry,  new  travels 
are  very  hard  to  peruse  diligently.  The  effort,  I  confess,  of  begin- 
ning a  new  novel,  of  making  acquaintance  with  an  unfamiliar  scene, 
of  getting  the  individualities  of  a  fresh  group  of  people  into  one's 
head,  is  becoming  every  year  harder  for  me;  but  there  are  still 
one  or  two  authors  of  fiction  for  whom  I  have  a  predilection,  and 
whose  works  I  look  out  for.  New  poetry  demands  an  even  greater 
effort ;  and  as  to  travels,  they  are  written  so  much  in  the  journalistic 
style,  and  consist  so  much  of  the  meals  our  traveller  obtains  at 
wayside  stations,  of  conversations  with  obviously  reticent  and 
even  unintelligent  persons;  they  have  so  many  photogravures  of 
places  that  are  exactly  like  other  places,  and  of  complacent  people 
in  grotesque  costumes,  like  supers  in  a  play,  that  one  feels  the 
whole  thing  to  be  hopelessly  superficial  and  unreal.  Imagine 
a  journalistic  foreigner  visiting  the  University,  lunching  at  the 
station  refreshment-room,  hurrying  to  half-a-dozen  of  the  best- 
known  colleges,  driving  in  a  tram  through  the  main  thorough- 
fares, looking  on  at  a  football  match,  interviewing  a  Town  Coun- 
cillor, and  being  presented  to  the  Vice-Chancellor  —  what  would 
be  the  profit  of  such  a  record  as  he  could  give  us  ?  What  would 
he  have  seen  of  the  quiet  daily  life,  the  interests,  the  home-current 
of  the  place?  The  only  books  of  travel  worth  reading  are  those 
where  a  person  has  settled  deliberately  in  an  unknown  place, 
really  lived  the  life  of  the  people,  and  penetrated  the  secret  of  the 
landscape  and  the  buildings. 

I  wish  very  much  that  there  was  a  really  good  literary  paper, 
with  an  editor  of  catholic  tastes,  and  half-a-dozen  stimulating 
specialists  on  the  staff,  whose  duty  would  be  to  read  the  books 
that  came  out,  each  in  his  own  line,  write  reviews  of  appreciation 
and  not  of  contemptuous  fault-finding,  let  feeble  books  alone,  and 
make  it  their  business  to  tell  ordinary  people  what  to  read,  not 
saving  them  the  trouble  of  reading  the  books  that  are  worth  read- 
ing, but  sparing  them  the  task  of  glancing  at  a  good  many  books 
that  are  not  worth  reading.  Literary  papers,  as  a  rule,  either 


36  ENGLISH   COMPOSITION 

review  a  book  with  hopeless  rapidity,  or  tend  to  lag  behind  too 
much.  It  would  be  of  the  essence  of  such  a  paper  as  I  have  de- 
scribed, that  there  should  be  no  delay  about  telling  one  what  to 
look  out  for,  and  at  the  same  time  that  the  reviews  should  be  de- 
liberate and  careful.  .  . 

But  I  think  as  one  grows  older  one  may  take  out  a  licence,  so 
to  speak,  to  read  less.  One  may  go  back  to  the  old  restful  books, 
where  one  knows  the  characters  well,  hear  the  old  remarks,  survey 
the  same  scenes.  One  may  meditate  more  upon  one's  stores, 
stroll  about  more,  just  looking  at  life,  seeing  the  quiet  things  that 
are  happening,  and  beaming  through  one's  spectacles.  One 
ought  to  have  amassed,  as  life  goes  on  and  the  shadows  lengthen, 
a  good  deal  of  material  for  reflection.  And,  after  all,  reading  is 
not  in  itself  a  virtue ;  it  is  only  one  way  of  passing  the  time ;  talking 
is  another  way,  watching  things  another.  Bacon  says  that  reading 
makes  a  full  man ;  well,  I  cannot  help  thinking  that  many  people 
are  full  to  the  brim  when  they  reach  the  age  of  forty,  and  that  much 
which  they  afterwards  put  into  the  overcharged  vase  merely  drips 
and  slobbers  uncomfortably  down  the  side  and  foot. 

The  thing  to  determine  then,  as  one's  brain  hardens  or  softens, 
is  what  the  object  of  reading  is.  It  is  not,  I  venture  to  think,  what 
used  to  be  called  the  pursuit  of  knowledge.  Of  course,  if  a  man 
is  a  professional  teacher  or  a  professional  writer,  he  must  read  for 
professional  purposes,  just  as  a  coral  insect  must  eat  to  enable 
it  to  secrete  the  substances  out  of  which  it  builds  its  branching 
house.  But  I  am  not  here  speaking  of  professional  studies,  but 
of  general  reading.  I  suppose  that  there  are  three  motives  for 
reading  —  the  first,  purely  pleasurable;  the  second,  intellectual; 
the  third,  what  may  be  called  ethical.  As  to  the  first,  a  man  who 
reads  at  all,  reads  just  as  he  eats,  sleeps,  and  takes  exercise,  be- 
cause he  likes  it;  and  that  is  probably  the  best  reason  that  can 
be  given  for  the  practice.  It  is  an  innocent  mode  of  passing  the 
time,  it  takes  one  out  of  oneself,  it  is  amusing.  Of  course,  it  can 
be  carried  to  an  excess ;  and  a  man  may  become  a  mere  book-eater, 
as  a  man  may  become  an  opium-eater.  I  used  at  one  time  to  go 
and  stay  with  an  old  friend,  a  clergyman  in  a  remote  part  of  Eng- 
land. He  was  a  bachelor  and  fairly  well  off.  He  did  not  care 
about  exercise  or  his  garden,  and  he  had  no  taste  for  general 


COHERENCE   IN    THE    WHOLE   COMPOSITION         37 

society.  He  subscribed  to  the  London  Library  and  to  a  lending 
library  in  the  little  town  where  he  lived,  and  he  bought,  too,  a  good 
many  books.  He  must  have  spent,  I  used  to  calculate,  about  ten 
hours  of  the  twenty-four  in  reading.  He  seemed  to  me  to  have 
read  everything,  old  and  new  books  alike,  and  he  had  an  astonish- 
ing memory;  anything  that  he  put  into  his  mind  remained  there 
exactly  as  fresh  and  clear  as  when  he  laid  it  away,  so  that  he  never 
needed  to  read  a  book  twice.  If  he  had  lived  at  a  University, 
he  would  have  been  a  useful  man;  if  one  wanted  to  know  what 
books  to  read  in  any  line,  one  had  only  to  pick  his  brains.  He 
could  give  one  a  list  of  authorities  on  almost  every  subject.  But 
in  his  country  parish  he  was  entirely  thrown  away.  He  had  not 
the  least  desire  to  make  anything  of  his  stores,  or  to  write.  He 
had  not  the  art  of  expression,  and  he  was  a  distinctly  tiresome  talker. 
His  idea  of  conversation  was  to  ask  you  whether  you  had  read  a 
number  of  modern  novels.  If  he  found  one  that  you  had  not  read, 
he  sketched  the  plot  in  an  intolerably  prolix  manner,  so  that  it 
was  practically  impossible  to  fix  the  mind  on  what  he  was  saying. 
He  seemed  to  have  no  preferences  in  literature  whatever;  his  one 
desire  was  to  read  everything  that  came  out,  and  his  only  idea  of 
a  holiday  was  to  go  up  to  London  and  get  lists  of  books  from  a 
bookseller.  That  is,  of  course,  an  extreme  case ;  and  I  cannot  help 
feeling  that  he  would  have  been  nearly  as  usefully  employed  if  he 
had  confined  himself  to  counting  the  number  of  words  in  the  books 
he  read.  But,  after  all,  he  was  interested  and  amused,  and  a  per- 
fectly contented  man. 

As  to  the  intellectual  motive  for  reading,  it  hardly  needs  discuss- 
ing; the  object  is  to  get  clear  conceptions,  to  arrive  at  a  critical 
sense  of  what  is  good  in  literature,  to  have  a  knowledge  of  events 
and  tendencies  of  thought,  to  take  a  just  view  of  history  and  of 
great  personalities ;  not  to  be  at  the  mercy  of  theorists,  but  to  be 
able  to  correct  a  faulty  bias  by  having  a  large  and  wide  view  of 
the  progress  of  events  and  the  development  of  thought.  One  who 
reads  from  this  point  of  view  will  generally  find  some  particular 
line  which  he  intends  to  follow,  some  special  region  of  the  mind 
where  is  he  desirous  to  know  all  that  can  be  known ;  but  he  will, 
at  the  same  time,  wish  to  acquaint  himself  in  a  general  way  with 
other  departments  of  thought,  so  that  he  may  be  interested  in  sub- 


38  ENGLISH   COMPOSITION 

jects  in  which  he  is  not  wholly  well-informed,  and  be  able  to  listen, 
even  to  ask  intelligent  questions,  in  matters  with  which  he  has  no 
minute  acquaintance.  Such  a  man,  if  he  steers  clear  of  the  con- 
tempt for  indefinite  views  which  is  often  the  curse  of  men  with 
clear  and  definite  minds,  makes  the  best  kind  of  talker,  stimulat- 
ing and  suggestive ;  his  talk  seems  to  open  doors  into  gardens  and 
corridors  of  the  house  of  thought;  and  others,  whose  knowledge 
is  fragmentary,  would  like  to  be  at  home,  too,  in  that  pleasant 
palace.  But  it  is  of  the  essence  of  such  talk  that  it  should  be 
natural  and  attractive,  not  professional  or  didactic.  People  who 
are  not  used  to  Universities  tend  to  believe  that  academical  per- 
sons are  invariably  formidable.  They  think  of  them  as  possessed 
of  vast  stores  of  precise  knowledge,  and  actuated  by  a  merciless 
desire  to  detect  and  to  ridicule  deficiencies  of  attainment  among 
unprofessional  people.  Of  course,  there  are  people  of  this  type 
to  be  found  at  a  University,  just  as  in  all  other  professions  it  is 
possible  to  find  uncharitable  specialists  who  despise  persons  of 
hazy  and  leisurely  views.  But  my  own  impression  is  that  it  is 
a  rare  type  among  University  Dons;  I  think  that  it  is  far  com- 
moner at  the  University  to  meet  men  of  great  attainments  com- 
bined with  sincere  humility  and  charity,  for  the  simple  reason  that 
the  most  erudite  specialist  at  a  University  becomes  aware  both  of 
the  wide  diversity  of  knowledge  and  of  his  own  limitations  as  well. 

Personally,  direct  bookish  talk  is  my  abomination.  A  know- 
ledge of  books  ought  to  give  a  man  a  delicate  allusiveness,  an  apti- 
tude for  pointed  quotation.  A  book  ought  to  be  only  incidentally, 
not  anatomically,  discussed;  and  I  am  pleased  to  be  able  to  think 
that  there  is  a  good  deal  of  this  allusive  talk  at  the  University,  and 
that  the  only  reason  that  there  is  not  more  is  that  professional 
demands  are  so  insistent,  and  work  so  thorough,  that  academical 
persons  cannot  keep  up  their  general  reading  as  they  would  like 
to  do. 

And  then  we  come  to  what  I  have  called,  for  want  of  a  better 
word,  the  ethical  motive  for  reading;  it  might  sound  at  first  as  if 
I  meant  that  people  ought  to  read  improving  books,  but  that  is 
exactly  what  I  do  not  mean.  I  have  very  strong  opinions  on  this 
point,  and  hold  that  what  I  call  the  ethical  motive  for  reading  is  the 
best  of  all  —  indeed  the  only  true  one.  And  yet  I  find  a  great 


COHERENCE  IN   THE   WHOLE  COMPOSITION         39 

difficulty  in  putting  into  words  what  is  a  very  elusive  and  delicate 
thought.  But  my  belief  is  this.  As  I  make  my  slow  pilgrimage 
through  the  world,  a  certain  sense  of  beautiful  mystery  seems  to 
gather  and  grow.  I  see  that  many  people  find  the  world  dreary  — 
and,  indeed,  there  must  be  spaces  of  dreariness  in  it  for  us  all,  — 
some  find  it  interesting;  some  surprising;  some  find  it  entirely 
satisfactory.  But  those  who  find  it  satisfactory  seem  to  me,  as 
a  rule,  to  be  tough,  coarse,  healthy  natures,  who  find  success  at- 
tractive and  food  digestible;  who  do  not  trouble  their  heads  very 
much  about  other  people,  but  go  cheerfully  and  optimistically 
on  their  way,  closing  their  eyes  as  far  as  possible  to  things  painful 
and  sorrowful,  and  getting  all  the  pleasure  they  can  out  of  material 
enjoyments. 

Well,  to  speak  very  sincerely  and  humbly,  such  a  life  seems  to 
me  the  worst  kind  of  failure.  It  is  the  life  that  men  were  living 
in  the  days  of  Noah,  and  out  of  such  lives  comes  nothing  that  is 
wise  or  useful  or  good.  Such  men  leave  the  world  as  they  found 
it,  except  for  the  fact  that  they  have  eaten  a  little  way  into  it,  like 
a  mite  into  a  cheese,  and  leave  a-  track  of  decomposition  behind/ 
them.  \ 

I  do  not  know  why  so  much  that  is  hard  and  painful  and  sad 
is  interwoven  with  our  life  here ;  but  I  see,  or  seem  to  see,  that  it  \ 
is  meant  to  be  so  interwoven.     All  the  best  and  most  beautiful 
flowers   of  character  and   thought  seem  to  me  to  spring  up  in  \  "7  - 
the  track  of  suffering;  and  what  is  the  most  sorrowful  of  all  r^T****p 
mysteries,  the  mystery  of  death,  the  ceasing  to  be,  the  relinquish-! 
ing  of  our  hopes  and  dreams,  the  breaking  of  our  dearest  ties,  be- 
comes  more  solemn  and  awe-inspiring  the  nearer  we  advance*  " 
to  it. 

I  do  not  mean  that  we  are  to  go  and  search  for  unhappiness;  but, 
on  the  other  hand,  the  only  happiness  worth  seeking  for  is  a  happi- 
ness which  takes  all  these  dark  things  into  account,  looks  them  in 
the  face,  reads  the  secret  of  their  dim  eyes  and  set  lips,  dwells  with 
them,  and  learns  to  be  tranquil  in  their  presence. 

In  this  mood  —  and  it  is  a  mood  which  no  thoughtful  man  can 
hope  or  ought  to  wish  to  escape  —  reading  becomes  less  and  less 
a  searching  for  instructive  and  impressive  facts,  and  more  and  more 
a  quest  after  wisdom  and  truth  and  emotion.  More  and  more  I 


40  ENGLISH   COMPOSITION 

\  feel  the  impenetrability  of  the  mystery  that  surrounds  us;    the 
phenomena  of  nature,  the  discoveries  of  science,  instead  of  raising 
j  the  veil,  seem  only  to  make  the  problem  more  complex,  more 
bizarre,  more  insoluble;    the  investigation  of  the  laws  of  light, 
)  of  electricity,  of  chemical  action,  of  the  causes  of  disease,  the  in- 
fluence of  heredity  —  all  these  things  may  minister  to  our  con- 
I  venience  and  our  health,  but  they  make  the  mind  of  God,  the  nature 
of  the  First  Cause,  an  infinitely  morejnysterious  andJnconceivable 
Aproblem.  iv-t*^   %  i»X^ZI^^./  ~r*-^cuZ~^,  -YJL***J^C^  -e^cT, 

But  there  still  remains,  inside,  so  to  speak,  of  these  astonishing 
facts,  a  whole  range  of  intimate  personal  phenomena,  of  emotion, 
of  relationship,  of  mental  or  spiritual  conceptions,  such  as  beauty, 
affection,  righteousness,  which  seem  to  be  an  even  nearer  concern, 
even  more  vital  to  our  happiness  than  the  vast  laws  of  which  it  is 
possible  for  men  to  be  so  unconscious,  that  centuries  have  rolled 
past  without  their  being  investigated. 

And  thus  in  such  a  mood  reading  becomes  a  patient  tracing 
out  of  human  emotion,  human  feeling,  when  confronted  with  the 
sorrows,  the  hopes,  the  motives,  the  sufferings  which  beckon  us 
and  threaten  us  on  every  side.  One  desires  to  know  what  pure 
I  and  wise  and  high-hearted  natures  have  made  of  the  problem;  one 
desires  to  let  the  sense  of  beauty  —  that  most  spiritual  of  all 
pleasures  —  sink  deeper  into  the  heart ;  one  desires  to  share  the 
thoughts  and  hopes,  the  dreams  and  visions,  in  the  strength  of 
which  the  human  spirit  has  risen  superior  to  suffering  and  death. 
And  thus,  as  I  say,  the  reading  that  is  done  in  such  a  mood  has 
little  of  precise  acquisition  or  definite  attainment  about  it;  it  is 
I  a  desire  rather  to  feed  and  console  the  spirit  —  to  enter  the  region 
in  which  it  seems  better  to  wonder  than  to  know,  to  aspire  rather 
^  than  to  define,  to  hope  rather  than  to  be  satisfied.  A  spirit 
which  walks  expectantly  along  this  path  grows  to  learn  that  the 
secret  of  such  happiness  as  we  can  attain  lies  in  simplicity  and 
courage,  in  sincerity  and  loving-kindness;  it  grows  more  and 
more  averse  to  material  ambitions  and  mean  aims;  it  more 
and  more  desires  silence  and  recollection  and  contemplation. 
In  this  mood,  the  words  of  the  wise  fall  like  the  tolling  of  sweet, 
grave  bells  upon  the  soul,  the  dreams  of  poets  come  like  music 
heard  at  evening  from  the  depth  of  some  enchanted  forest,  wafted 


COHERENCE   IN   THE   WHOLE  COMPOSITION         41 

over  a  wide  water;  we  know  not  what  instrument  it  is  whence  the 
music  wells,  by  what  fingers  swept,  by  what  lips  blown ;  but  we 
know  that  there  is  some  presence  there  that  is  sorrowful  or  glad, 
who  has  power  to  translate  his  dream  into  the  concord  of  sweet 
sounds.  Such  a  mood  need  not  withdraw  us  from  life,  from 
toil,  from  kindly  relationships,  from  deep  affections;  but  it  will 
rather  send  us  back  to  life  with  a  renewed  and  joyful  zest,  with 
a  desire  to  discern  the  true  quality  of  beautiful  things,  of  fair 
thoughts,  of  courageous  hopes,  of  wise  designs.  It  will  make 
us  tolerant  and  forgiving,  patient  with  stubbornness  and  preju- 
dice, simple  in  conduct,  sincere  in  word,  gentle  in  deed;  with 
pity  for  weakness,  with  affection  for  the  lonely  and  the  desolate, 
with  admiration  for  all  that  is  noble  and  serene  and  strong. 

Those  who  read  in  such  a  spirit  will  tend  to  resort  more  and 
more  to  large  and  wise  and  beautiful  books,  to  press  the  sweetness 
out  of  old  familiar  thoughts,  to  look  more  for  warmth  and  loftiness 
of  feeling  than  for  elaborate  and  artful  expression.      They  will 
value  more  and  more  books  that  speak  to  the  soul,  rather  than 
books  that  appeal  to  the  ear  and  to  the  mind.     The  will  realizell 
that  it  is  through  wisdom  and  force  and  nobility  that  books  retain  ]\  c 
their  hold  upon  the  hearts  of  men,  and  not  by  briskness  and  colour  J !/ 
and  epigram.     A  mind  thus  stored  may  have  little  grasp  of  facts, 
little  garniture  of  paradox  and  jest ;  but  it  will  be  full  of  compas- 
sion and  hope,  of  gentleness  and  joy. 


SECOND  NATURE1 

GRANT  ALLEN 

We  have  all  said  a  hundred  times  over  that  habit  is  a  second 
nature  —  repeating  thoughtlessly  the  acute  remark  of  some  name- 
less and  forgotten  popular  philosopher,  some  Peckham  Socrates 
or  some  Bloomsbury  Aristotle,  who  first  invented,  no  doubt,  that 
now  historical  phrase ;  but  very  few  of  us,  in  all  probability,  have 
ever  reflected  how  profoundly  true  and  brilliantly  luminous  is  the 

1  From  Common  Sense  Science,  by  Grant  Allen.  Used  by  the  kind  per- 
mission of  the  publishers,  Lothrop,  Lee  and  Shepard  Company,  Boston. 


42  ENGLISH   COMPOSITION 

idea  wrapped  up  in  that  simple  and  familiar  commonplace  of  the 
present  generation.  It  is  often  so  with  current  platitudes ;  begin- 
ning as  the  wise  and  witty  sayings  of  some  pregnant  and  pithy  local 
character,  they  are  picked  up  and  repeated  carelessly  by  other 
people  who  never  even  dream  themselves  of  realizing  their  full 
meaning  or  true  import,  and  they  pass  at  last  into  the  position  of 
proverbs,  bandied  about  daily  in  common  conversation,  with 
scarcely  a  relic  of  their  original  savor  and  fresh  cleverness  re- 
maining in  them.  And  yet  the  unknown  thinker,  whoever  he 
may  have  been,  who  first  struck  out  the  lucid  conception  of  habit 
as  a  second  nature,  must  have  possessed  philosophical  and  psy- 
chological powers  of  no  mean  order.  For  he  touched  at  once, 
as  if  with  the  needle-point  of  fine  criticism,  the  very  core  and  heart 
of  the  matter;  he  summed  up  in  a  single  short  and  easy  epigram- 
matic sentence  a  whole  condensed  scientific  theory  of  habit  and 
repetition.  Habit  is  that  which  by  use  has  become  natural  to  us; 
nature  is  habit  handed  down  from  our  ancestors,  and  ingrained 
bodily  in  the  very  structure  of  our  brains  and  muscles  and  nervous 
systems.  4V»tUi  f~-  °**-  "Jf~*~  -^ 

Let  us  look  first  at  a  few  of  the  more  extended  manifestations  of 
habit,  where  it  assumes  hereditarily  the  very  guise  and  form  of 
nature.  It  is  well  known  that  the  children  of  jugglers,  rope- 
dancers,  tumblers,  and  acrobats  can  be  much  more  easily  trained 
and  taught  their  fathers'  profession  than  any  casual  ordinary 
members  of  the  general  public.  They  are  born,  in  fact,  with 
quicker  fingers,  more  supple  limbs,  nimbler  toes,  easier  muscles, 
than  the  vast  mass  of  their  fellow-citizens.  The  constant  practice 
of  hand  or  foot  has  made  a  real  difference  at  last  in  the  very 
structure  and  fibers  of  their  bodies;  and  this  difference  is  trans- 
mitted to  their  children,  so  that  the  conjurer,  like  the  poet,  is  to 
some  extent  born,  not  made.  It  is  just  the  same  with  many  other 
arts  and  handicrafts.  Children  descended  from  musical  families 
are  musical  almost  from  their  very  birth  —  those  born  of  parents 
both  of  whom  have  constantly  played  the  harp  or  the  piano  exhibit 
a  suppleness  and  ease  of  movement  in  the  arms  and  fingers  entirely 
wanting  to  the  sons  and  daughters  of  agricultural  laborers  or  un- 
skilled mechanics.  So,  too,  mountaineers  of  many  generations' 
standing  have  limbs  specially  adapted  to  mountain  climbing  — 


COHERENCE  IN   THE   WHOLE  COMPOSITION         43 

for  example,  the  Indians  of  the  Andes  differ  immensely  in  the 
proportions  of  their  bones,  and  particularly  of  their  thighs,  from 
all  other  individuals  of  the  human  race;  and  from  babyhood 
upward  this  originally  acquired  difference  makes  itself  evidently 
seen  in  the  children  of  such  Indians.  In  these  and  numberless 
other  like  cases  we  recognize  at  once  that  habit  has  at  last  produced 
a  positive  physical  difference  in  the  individuals  of  the  particular 
profession  or  tribe  concerned,  and  that  the  difference  so  begotten 
is  handed  down,  as  a  matter  of  original  nature,  to  the  second 
generation.  Our  nature,  in  short,  depends  upon  the  structure 
with  which  we  are  at  birth  endowed;  and  this  structure  itself  in 
turn  depends,  in  part  at  least,  upon  the  acquired  habits  and  func- 
tional practices  of  our  parents  and  our  remoter  ancestors. 

But  habit,  itself,  within  a  single  person's  own  lifetime,  also 
tends  to  acquire  the  fixity  and  rigidity  of  nature  —  becomes  in 
time  almost  irresistible  and,  as  it  were,  automatic.  Look,  for 
instance,  at  the  smallest  matters  connected  with  the  way  we  dress 
ourselves,  cut  up  our  food,  or  perform  our  most  ordinary  every- 
day actions.  Everybody  has  a  fixed  order  for  putting  on  his  socks ; 
either  he  puts  on  the  right  foot  before  the  left,  or  vice  versa,  and 
any  attempt  to  reverse  the  accustomed  order  seems  to  him  not  only 
awkward  but  almost  unnatural.  So,  again,  in  buttoning  his 
collar,  he  either  buttons  the  right  half  over  the  left,  or  the  left  over 
the  right ;  and,  whichever  he  does,  he  does  it  regularly,  he  doesn't 
fluctuate  casually  from  morning  to  morning,  doing  it  now  one 
way  and  now  the  other.  A  very  curious  difference  exists  in  this 
respect  between  men's  dress  and  women's;  tailors  always  put  the 
buttons  on  the  right  side  and  the  buttonholes  on  the  left;  while 
dressmakers  adopt  the  contrary  course,  putting  the  buttons  left 
and  the  buttonholes  right.  Now,  if  a  man,  by  any  accident,  has 
the  buttons  sewn  on  any  garment  the  unfamiliar  way,  he  finds 
himself  as  awkward  as  a  baby  in  the  attempt  to  fasten  them ;  while 
if  a  woman,  on  the  other  hand,  puts  on  a  man's  coat,  she  is  struck 
at  once  by  what  seems  to  her  the  clumsy  way  the  thing  has  to  be 
fastened  wrong  side  on.  In  each  case  the  habit  of  buttoning  on 
one  side  has  become  absolutely  automatic ;  the  muscles  and  nerves 
of  the  fingers  have  adapted  themselves  to  the  accustomed  move- 
ments, and  are  incapable  of  performing  any  alternative  motion 


44  ENGLISH   COMPOSITION 

with  equal  facility.  If  any  person  watches  himself  for  a  single 
day  in  this  manner,  he  will  find  there  are  thousands  of  similar 
little  actions  he  performs  almost  unconsciously,  by  mere  organic 
routine,  each  step  in  the  process  being  followed,  without  .the 
necessity  for  thinking,  by  the  next  in  order,  exactly  as  the  words 
and  rhymes  of  any  familiar  piece  of  poetry  help  to  call  up  one 
another  in  memory,  without  the  slightest  conscious  effort.  As 
the  French  proverb  quaintly  puts  it,  he  who  says  A  must  say  B 
also. 

A  very  good  example  of  this  automatic  power  of  habit  is  seen 
in  the  way  we  almost  all  wind  up  our  watches  every  evening.  At 
a  certain  fixed  stage  in  the  process  of  going  to  bed,  one  hand  seeks 
automatically  the  waistcoat  pocket  and  pulls  the  watch  out;  the 
other  dives  without  sense  of  effort  into  the  recesses  of  the  purse 
in  search  of  the  watch-key,  which  is  oftenest  recognized  not  by 
sight  but  by  mere  feeling.  Then  the  watch  is  opened  as  if  by 
clockwork,  the  key  is  turned  round  automatically  a  certain  familiar 
number  of  times,  and  duly  replaced  in  the  proper  pocket;  the  face 
is  shut  down  again  without  ever  thinking  about  it;  and  finally 
the  watch  itself  is  hung  up  on  its  peg  or  laid  down  upon  the  table 
by  the  bedside,  as  the  case  may  be,  while  all  the  time  perhaps  we 
have  been  steadily  reflecting  or  talking  about  something  else,  and 
hardly  even  been  aware  at  all  of  what  it  was  we  were  muscularly 
engaged  upon.  So  purely  mechanical  is  the  process,  indeed,  that 
people  who  do  not  habitually  dress  for  dinner  generally  find  them- 
selves winding  up  their  watches  whenever  they  take  off  their 
waistcoats  to  assume  the  civilized  swallow-tail  and  white  tie  of 
modern  society.  The  action  has  become  stereotyped  in  the  ner- 
vous system,  and  when  once  the  first  step  of  the  series  is  taken 
by  unbuttoning  the  coat,  all  the  rest  follows  as  a  matter  of  course, 
without  the  necessity  for  deliberation  or  voluntary  effort.  Some- 
times, indeed,  even  the  will  itself  is  not  strong  enough  to  beat  such 
chains  of  habit;  Dr.  Hughlings  Jackson  mentions  a  curious  case 
where  an  omnibus  horse  in  the  streets  of  London  obstinately  re- 
fused for  several  minutes  to  move  on  at  the  combined  commands 
of  his  driver  and  a  policeman.  Shouts  and  whippings  were  all 
in  vain ;  the  creature  declined  to  budge  an  inch  to  please  anybody. 
At  last  a  passenger  inside  suggested  mildly,  "  Shut  the  door,  con- 


COHERENCE  IN    THE   WHOLE   COMPOSITION         45 

ductor!"  The  conductor  slammed  the  door  with  a  bang,  and, 
as  he  did  so,  rang  the  bell.  That  familiar  sign  was  too  much  for 
the  obdurate  horse's  nervous  system.  Within  all  his  experience, 
when  a  new  passenger  got  in,  and  the  omnibus  was  ready  to  start 
again,  the  door  was  slammed  and  the  bell  rung.  He  could  not 
resist  the  force  of  habit.  He  set  off  at  once  at  a  round  pace,  as 
if  acted  upon  magically  by  some  powerful  spell,  and  forgot  at  once 
all  about  his  sulky  temper. 

Much  the  same  sort  of  routine  practice  is  apparent  in  the  lives 
of  every  one  of  us.  An  immense  number  of  little  acts  and  phrases 
every  day  are  performed  and  repeated  by  pure  force  of  habit. 
We  do  ten  thousand  habitual  things,  as  it  were,  instinctively. 
"How  do  you  do?"  we  ask  a  friend  twenty  times  running,  if  we 
meet  him  again;  not  because  we  want  to  assure  ourselves  as  to 
the  state  of  his  constitution  so  very  frequently,  but  because  the 
mere  act  of  meeting  him  calls  up  the  words  mechanically  to  our 
lips.  "  Quite  well,  thank  you,"  we  answer  thoughtlessly  to  casual 
inquiries  about  the  health  of  our  families,  even  though  we  may 
at  that  very  moment  be  anxiously  running  to  get  the  doctor  on 
the  sudden  outbreak  of  scarlet  fever  in  the  bosom  of  the  house- 
hold. In  the  same  way,  when  we  have  once  got  into  the  habit 
of  addressing  letters  to  a  particular  person  at  a  particular  place, 
the  mere  act  of  writing  his  name  upon  an  envelope  is  followed 
almost  irresistibly  by  the  familiar  number  of  the  house  and  direction 
of  the  street  in  which  he  lives.  We  may  have  been  accustomed 
for  twenty  years  to  send  all  our  notes  for  Jeremiah  Tompkins  to 
37  East  Fourteenth  Street,  New  York  City;  if  increasing  means 
and  fashionable  desires  induce  our  friend  to  remove  to  the  more 
select  neighborbood  of  Fifth  Avenue,  we  still  find  that,  whenever 
we  have  got  as  far  with  his  address  as  "  Jeremiah  Tompkins,  Esq.," 
the  pen  seems  of  itself  to  run  on  into  37  East  Fourteenth  Street, 
and  it  is  only  with  an  effort  that  we  substitute  in  its  place  the  new 
address  in  the  more  dignified  up-town  district.  Everybody  has 
had  abundant  examples  of  the  same  sort  within  the  range  of  his 
own  experience.  We  change  our  banker,  let  us  say ;  but  as  soon 
as  we  write  on  an  envelope  the  words,  "The  Manager,"  in  a  trice 
the  name  of  the  old  bank  writes  itself  down  against  our  will  in 
the  place  of  the  new  one.  We  go  away  from  home  on  a  holiday; 


46  ENGLISH   COMPOSITION- 

but  at  the  head  of  our  letters  we  still  tend  to  begin  by  dating  from 
the  old  familiar  domestic  address.  At  the  commencement  of  each 
new  year,  how  hard  we  find  it  to  alter  from  the  old  date  to  the  new, 
though  the  practice  has  run  but  for  a  single  twelvemonth;  while 
every  married  lady  must  well  remember  with  what  difficulty  she 
altered  her  maiden  signature  to  the  one  forced  upon  her  by  the 
not  wholly  distasteful  necessities  of  marriage.  After  one  has 
written  all  one's  lifetime,  up  to  date,  "  Very  affectionately  yours, 
Ethel  Smith,"  it  must  be  with  a  sudden  pull-up  of  the  pen  and 
hand  that  one  alters  it  at  last  by  an  effort  of  will  into  "Ethel 
Montgomery." 

What  is  the  rational  and  underlying  cause  of  this  force  of  habit? 
Clearly,  the  nerves  and  brain  elements  have  become  altered  by 
usage,  so  that  the  directive  action  runs  more  easily  along  a  certain 
channel  than  along  any  other.  Very  few  acts  of  our  lives  are 
isolated;  most  of  them  move  in  trains  or  sequences  so  associated 
that  one  immediately  summons  up  another,  each  act  being,  so 
to  speak,  the  cue  or  call-word  for  the  next  in  order.  The  nervous 
energy  flows  most  easily  along  the  most  accustomed  channels; 
set  up  the  first  step  in  the  sequence,  and  all  the  other  steps  follow 
regularly,  exactly  as  in  repeating  any  well-known  and  familiar 
formula.  Habit,  in  short,  becomes  a  second  nature  because  it 
modifies  to  some  extent  our  original  minute  bodily  structure,  and 
makes  nerves  and  muscles  act  together  constantly  in  certain  almost 
indissoluble  chains  of  coordinated  action.  The  oftener  we  do 
a  thing,  the  easier  it  thus  becomes;  and  when  we  have  done 
certain  things  one  after  another,  over  and  over  again  for  many 
years,  the  tendency  of  the  first  to  call  up  the  others  in  due  suc- 
cession becomes  at  last  all  but  irresistible. 

There  is  some  reason,  indeed,  to  believe  that  nature  itself  or 
personal  idiosyncrasy  depends  ultimately  upon  mere  habit  —  not, 
of  course,  the  habit  of  the  individual  himself  who  possesses  it,  but 
of  his  earlier  ancestors,  paternal  and  maternal.  It  is  now  fairly 
well  proved  that  the  character  with  which  every  one  of  us  is  en- 
dowed at  birth  must  be  regarded  as  a  direct  inheritance  from  our 
fathers  and  mothers,  our  grandfathers  and  grandmothers,  in  vary- 
ing degrees  of  compounded  qualities.  Hence,  while  habit  is  a 
second  nature,  it  may  also  be  said  that  nature  in  turn  is  a  secondary 


COHERENCE  IN    THE    WHOLE   COMPOSITION          47 

habit.  What  we  are  by  nature  we  largely  or  even  entirely  derive 
from  the  various  acquired  habits  of  our  ancestors ;  what  we  make 
ourselves,  on  the  other  hand,  by  habit  we  largely  pass  on  to  the 
natures  of  our  children  and  our  remoter  descendants.  And  this 
consideration  renders  the  awful  responsibility  of  the  formation 
of  habits  even  more  painfully  evident  than  ever.  It  is  a  serious 
enough  thought  that  every  wrong  act  indulged  in,  every  weakness 
gratified,  every  temptation  yielded  to,  helps  to  stereotype  the  evil 
practice  itself  in  the  very  fibers  and  tissues  of  our  bodies.  But  it 
is  more  serious  still  to  consider  that  every  habit  thus  thought- 
lessly or  wickedly  formed  is  liable  to  be  transmitted  to  our  children 
after  us.  Drunkenness,  for  example,  as  we  all  know,  tends  to 
show  itself  as  a  hereditary  vice.  Well,  then,  every  act  of  culpable 
yielding  to  the  temptation  to  drink  to  excess  is  not  only  a  step  to 
the  formation  of  an  ingrained  habit  in  the  person  himself,  but  also 
a  step  towards  the  setting  up  of  a  hereditary  tendency  to  drunken- 
ness in  his  children  and  descendants.  On  the  other  hand,  the 
more  strongly  any  such  besetting  sin  assails  us  by  nature  —  the 
more  deeply  implanted  it  may  be  in  the  very  form  and  structure 
of  our  nervous  system  —  the  greater  is  the  necessity  for  constant 
watchfulness  against  its  insidious  attacks,  and  the  deeper  the  im- 
portance of  guarding  against  it  by  every  means  that  lies  in  our 
power.  To  form  a  bad  habit  is  of  all  things  most  dangerous  when 
we  find  ourselves  already  prone  to  the  habit  by  very  nature.  By 
way  of  compensation,  however,  we  may  reflect  with  pleasure  that 
every  temptation  resisted,  every  weakness  thwarted,  every  active 
exercise  of  self-control  insured,  helps  to  build  "up  a  habit  of  re- 
sistance, and  makes  victory  over  the  evil  more  easy  in  future. 
Exactly  as  by  frequently  writing  the  new  address  of  the  friend 
who  has  moved  we  learn  at  last  to  forget  the  old  one,  so  by  fre- 
quently and  constantly  taking  the  better  course  of  action  we  learn 
at  last,  almost  without  an  effort,  to  avoid  the  worse.  The  right 
habit  becomes,  as  it  were,  a  second  nature;  as  in  the  case  of  the 
most  upright  of  modern  philosophers,  about  whom  Sir  Henry 
Taylor  has  acutely  observed  that  he  hardly  seemed  to  be  even  con- 
scientious —  it  appeared  as  though  he  acted  right  under  all  cir- 
cumstances quite  automatically  and  without  the  possibility  of 
doing  otherwise.  There  are  people,  indeed,  descended  from 


4g  ENGLISH  COMPOSITION 

exceptionally  fine  stocks  on  either  side,  of  whom  it  has  been  well 
said  that  they  are  almost  born  "organically  moral":  the  impulse 
to  act  right  seems  in  their  inherited  natures  to  have  completely 
outweighed  the  impulse  to  act  wrong;  and  what  many  of  the  rest 
of  us  do  with  a  voluntary  effort  these  happily  constituted  and 
beautiful  characters  seem  to  do,  so  to  speak,  mechanically  and 
unconsciously. 

A  third  method  which  is  often  convenient  when  no  other  occurs 
to  the  mind  is  that  of  enumeration.  According  to  this,  you  state 
all  the  various  headings  of  your  theme  at  the  beginning  and  then 
take  them  up  one  by  one  in  order.  For  example,  you  might  start 
a  theme  on  the  chief  advantages  of  life  in  a  large  city  as  follows :  — 

The  chief  advantages  of  living  in  a  large  city  are:  that  it  gives  better 
preliminary  education,  that  it  offers  more  social  opportunities,  and 
that  it  gives  one  a  wider  knowledge  of  men. 

Then  the  first  paragraph  would  be  about  educational  advantages, 
the  second  about  social  opportunities,  and  the  third  about  a  wider 
knowledge  of  men.  In  real  life  this  method  is  used  more  in  oral 
arguments  (such  as  lawyers'  speeches)  than  in  written  essays ;  but 
it  is  often  very  helpful  in  either.  One  thing  should  be  remembered 
in  adopting  it,  and  this  is  that  the  different  topics  in  your  theme 
should  follow  one  another  in  the  same  order  as  in  the  opening 
sentence.  The  reader  expects  this  and  prepares  himself  for  it; 
consequently  if  you  change  the  order  you  throw  him  off  the  track. 
Below  is  given  an  example  of  this  method.  The  slight  abruptness 
at  the  beginning  and  end  is  due  to  the  fact  that  it  is  merely  an 
extract  from  an  article  too  long  to  be  quoted  here  entire.1 

THE  ATTITUDES  OF  MEN  TOWARD  IMMORTALITY 

G.   L.    DICKINSON 

I  have  to  deal  with  a  number  of  different  and  mutually  in- 
compatible attitudes,  resulting  from  different  experiences  and 
temperaments.  These  I  shall  pass  in  review,  distinguish,  and 

1  Enumeration  is  also  used  in  the  selection  on  Books,  by  A.  C.  Benson, 
in  an  earlier  part  of  this  chapter. 


COHERENCE  IN   THE  WHOLE  COMPOSITION         49 

criticise;  and  each  of  my  readers,  I  assume,  meantime  will  be 
considering  within  himself  what  his  own  position  is  towards  each 
of  them. 

The  attitudes  in  question  may  be  broadly  distinguished  as  three. 
There  are  those  who  do  not  think  about  immortality,  those  who 
fear  it,  and  those  who  desire  it. 

1.  The  majority  of  people  I  should  suppose  belong  to  the  first 
class,  except  perhaps  in  certain  crises  of  life.     The  normal  attitude 
of  men  towards  death  seems  to  be  one  of  inattention  or  evasion. 
They  do  not  trouble  about  it;   they  do  not  want  to  trouble  about 
it;    and  they  resent  its  being  called  to  their  notice.     And  this,  I 
believe,  is  as  true  of  those  who  nominally  accept  Christianity  as 
of  those  who  reject  any  form  of  religion.     On  this  point  the  late 
Frederick  Myers  used  to  tell  a  story  which  I  have  always  thought 
very  illuminating.     In  conversation  after  dinner  he  was  pressing 
on  his  host  the  unwelcome  question,  what  he  thought  would  happen 
after  death.     After  many  evasions  and  much    recalcitrancy,   the 
reluctant  admission  was  extorted :    "  Of  course,  if  you  press  me, 
I  believe  that  we  shall  all  enter  into  eternal  bliss ;   but  I  wish  you 
wouldn't  talk  about  such  disagreeable  subjects."     This  I  believe 
is  typical  of  the  normal  mood  of  most  men.     They  don't  want  to 
be  worried;    and  though  probably,  if  the 'question  were  pressed, 
they  would  object  to  the  idea  of  extinction,  they  can  hardly  be  said 
to  desire  immortality.     Even  at  the  point  of  death,  it  would  seem, 
this  attitude  is  eften  maintained.     Thus  Professor  Osier  writes :  — 

"I  have  careful  records  of  about  five  hundred  death-beds, 
studied  particularly  with  reference  to  the  modes  of  death  and  the 
sensations  of  the  dying.  The  latter  alone  concern  us  here.  Ninety 
suffered  bodily  pain  or  distress  of  one  sort  or  another,  eleven 
showed  riiental  apprehension,  two  positive  terror,  one  expressed 
spiritual  exaltation,  one  bitter  remorse.  The  great  majority  gave 
no  signs  one  way  or  the  other;  like  their  birth,  their  death  was  a 
sleep  and  a  forgetting." 

2.  It  cannot,  then,  I  think,  be  said  that  most  men  desire  im- 
mortality; rather  they  are,  in  their  normal  mood,  and  even  at  the 
point  of  death,  indifferent  to  the  question.  •  But  most  men  perhaps 
in  some  moods,  and  some  men  continually,  do  reflect  upon  the 
subject  and  have  conscious  and  definite  desires  about  it.     Of  these, 


50  ENGLISH  COMPOSITION 

however,  not  all  desire  immortality;  and  some  are  so  far  from 
desiring  it  that  they  passionately  crave  extinction,  and  would 
receive  the  news  that  they  survive  death,  not  with  exultation,  but 
with  despair.  The  two  positions  are  to  be  distinguished.  On 
the  one  hand,  a  man  may  simply  have  had  enough  of  life  without 
having  any  quarrel  with  it,  and  may  prefer  to  the  idea  of  continued 
existence  that  of  oblivion  and  repose.  Such,  according  to  Met- 
schnikoff,  would  be  the  normal  attitude  of  men  if  they  were  not 
habitually  cut  off  before  the  natural  term  of  life,  a  term  which  he 
puts  at 'well  over  a  hundred  years.  And  such  seems,  in  fact,  to 
be  the  attitude  of  some  men  even  under  present  conditions.  It  is 
beautifully  and  classically  expressed  in  the  well-known  epitaph 
of  the  poet  Landor,  on  himself :  — 

I  strove  with  none,  for  none  was  worth  my  strife; 

Nature  I  loved  and  next  to  nature,  art; 
I  warmed  both  hands  before  the  fire  of  life; 

It  sinks  and  I  am  ready  to  depart. 

On  the  other  hand,  there  are  those  who  not  merely  acquiesce  in, 
but  desire  extinction ;  and  that  because  they  believe,  on  philosophic 
or  other  grounds,  that  any  possible  life  must  be  bad.  These  are 
the  people  called  pessimists;  they  are  more  numerous  than  is 
often  believed;  and  they  are  apt  to  be  regarded  by  the  plain  man 
with  a  certain  moral  reprobation.  That  this  should  be  so  is  an 
interesting  testimony  to  the  instinctive  optimism  of  mankind. 
But  the  optimism,  it  will  perhaps  be  agreed,  is  commonly  less  pro- 
found than  the  pessimism.  Whatever  may  be  the  promise  of  life, 
it  is,  as  we  know  it,  to  those  who  look  at  it  fairly  and  straight,  very 
terrible,  unjust,  and  cruel.  And  if  any  conceivable  subsequent 
life  must  be  of  the  same  character  as  this,  no  freer  from  limitation, 
no  richer  in  hope,  no  fuller  in  achievement,  then  the  pessimist 
has  at  any  rate  a  strong  prima  facie  case.  And  this  brings  us  to 
the  obvious  point,  that  the  desirability  of  a  future  life  must  depend 
upon  its  character,  just  as  does  the  desirability  of  this  one.  So 
that  it  is  relevant  to  ask  those  who  acquiesce  in  or  desire  extinction, 
whether  or  no  there  is  some  kind  of  life  which,  if  offered  to  them 
securely,  they  would  be  willing  to  accept  after  death. 


COHERENCE  IN    THE    WHOLE  COMPOSITION         51 

3.  Let  us  turn  then  to  our  third  class,  those  who  desire  immor- 
tality, and  ask  them  what  it  is  they  desire,  and  whether  it  is  really 
desirable.  For  a  number  of  very  different  conceptions  may  be 
covered  by  the  same  phrase.  And  first,  there  are  those  who  simply 
do  not  want  to  die,  and  whose  desire  for  immortality  is  merely 
the  expression  of  this  feeling.  Old  people,  so  far  as  I  have  ob- 
served, often  cling  in  this  way  to  life;  more  often,  indeed,  than  the 
young.  Yet,  if  they  could  put  it  fairly  to  themselves,  they  would, 
I  suppose,  hardly  say  that  they  would  wish  to  go  on  forever  in  this 
life,  with  all  their  infirmities  increasing  upon  them.  Nothing 
surely  is  sadder,  nothing  meaner,  than  this  desire  to  prolong  life 
here  at  all  costs.  The  sick,  the  infirm,  the  aged  —  that  we  care 
for  them  as  we  do  may  be  creditable  to  our  humanity.  But  that 
they  desire  to  be  cared  for,  instead  of  to  depart,  is  that  so  creditable 
to  theirs  ?  I  will  go  further  and  say  that  to  arrest  any  period  of  life, 
even  the  best,  the  most  glorious  youth,  the  most  triumphant  man- 
hood, is  what  no  reasonable  man  will  rightly  desire.  To  the  values 
of  life,  at  any  rate  as  we  know  it  now,  the  change  we  call  growing 
older  seems  to  be  essential  ;  and  we  cannot  wisely  wish  to  arrest 

that  process  anywhere  this  side  of  death.  <4tXz> 
^r   t^t~~-  -t-    :  —  —  ~r~«-      v 


So  much  for  arrangement  of  topics.  Now  we  found  under  Unity 
that  we  must  not  only  have  everything  belong  in  our  theme  but 
also  make  our  readers  realize  that  it  belongs  there.  Something 
similar  is  true  of  Coherence  as  well.  You  must  not  only  pass  from 
point  to  point  in  order,  but  you  must  also  tell  your  reader  when- 
ever you  pass  from  one  point  to  another.  The  great  danger  in 
all  writing  is  that  your  reader  may  think  you  are  still  talking  about 
Point  i  when  you  are  really  well  advanced  in  Point  2.  To  pre- 
vent this  you  must  always  let  him  see  very  distinctly  just  where 
you  cross  the  dividing  line  between  one  point  and  another.  The 
sentences  which  are  used  for  this  purpose  are  usually  called  "transi- 
tion sentences";  and  naturally  they  come  at  the  beginning  of 
each  new  paragraph  or  subdivision  of  your  theme.  Some  writers 
put  these  sentences  at  the  end  of  the  old  paragraph  ;  but  it  is  more 
common,  and  on  the  whole  better,  to  put  them  at  the  commence- 
ment of  the  new  one.  For  example,  if  you  were  writing  an  essay 
on  the  pleasures  of  country  life,  the  first  sentences  of  your  various 


52  ENGLISH   COMPOSITION 

paragraphs  —  that  is,  your  transition  sentences  —  might  go  some- 
thing like  this :  — 

1.  One  of  the  charms  of  country  life  lies  in  the  pure  fresh  air.  .   .  . 

2.  Another  attractive  feature  is  the  splendid  opportunity  which  it 
offers  for  swimming  and  boating.   .   .   . 

3.  Then  again  you  can  play  tennis,  golf,  or  baseball  at  your  very 
door.  .  .  . 

4.  If  your  inclinations  lead  you  in  another  direction,  you  can  find 
a  great  deal  of  pleasure  in  studying  the  odd  types  of  character  that  you 
find  there.  .  .  . 

5.  Above  all,  you  are  able  to  get  away  from  the  heat  and  racket  of 
the  town.  .  .  . 

Here  each  of  these  sentences  shows  that  you  have  dropped  one 
topic  and  are  beginning  on  another;  as  a  result  the  reader  realizes 
perfectly  where  you  are  and  can  follow  you  without  trouble.  On 
the  contrary,  if  you  had  left  out  sentence  4,  for  instance,  and  then 
had  gone  on  talking  about  these  odd  characters,  your  reader  would 
think  you  were  still  discussing  baseball  and  golf,  and  would  be 
racking  his  head  to  see  the  connection  between  these  sports  and 
your  last  remarks.  Eventually,  perhaps,  he  might  grasp  the 
situation;  but  in  the  meanwhile  you  would  have  made  sad  inroads 
on  his  valuable  time  and  still  more  valuable  temper.  A  glance 
at  the  extracts  on  the  preceding  pages  will  show  how  consistently 
good  writers  use  these  transition  sentences. 

In  long  themes  of  three  or  four  thousand  words  short  para- 
graphs, called  "transition  paragraphs,"  are  often  used  to  mark  the 
spot  where  the  writer  passes  from  one  big  subdivision  of  his  essay 
to  another.  In  short  themes  of  four  hundred  words,  however, 
these  are  not  needed  and  should  not  be  used.  All  that  is  necessary 
for  a  theme  of  that  length  is  to  have  your  topics  arranged  in  some 
clear  order,  and  to  introduce  each  topic  by  a  topic  sentence. 


CHAPTER   IV 

EMPHASIS   IN   THE   WHOLE   COMPOSITION 

IN  writing  a  theme  you  are  handling  several  different  subtopics 
under  one  big  main  head.  Seme  of  these  topics  you  will  wish 
to  impress  more  strongly  than  others  on  the  reader's  mind.  If 
you  were  writing  a  letter  recommending  a  man  for  a  position,  you 
might  lay  some  stress  on  the  statement  that  he  was  an  enjoyable 
companion,  but  you  would  lay  much  more  on  the  fact  that  he  was 
fitted  for  the  place.  You  would  wish  the  firm  addressed  to  remem- 
ber both  points;  but  you  would  wish  them  to  be  much  more  im- 
pressed with  the  latter  one,  since  that  is  what  would  mainly  de- 
termine their  decision.  Or  again,  suppose  you  were  writing  a 
theme  urging  certain  reforms  in  your  preparatory  school.  You 
would  feel  that  some  of  these  reforms  were  more  important  than 
others;  and  would  wish  your  readers  to  feel  this,  so  that  they 
might  carry  out  the  most  important  ones  first,  even  if  the  others 
had  to  be  neglected. 

Now  Emphasis,  the  last  of  our  three  principles,  is  the  one  by 
which  we  make  our  readers  see  the  relative  importance  of  our 
ideas.  Its  practical  value  is  much  greater  than  might  at  first  be 
supposed,  and  can  be  shown  by  an  illustration.  Suppose  that  you 
and  Mr.  A  are  rival  agents  for  two  different  types  of  automobile. 
A  timid  lady,  who  wishes  a  very  safe  machine  and  does  not  care 
at  all  about  speed,  writes  letters  to  both  you  and  A.  In  your 
letter  you  briefly  mention  the  safety  of  your  machine,  and  then 
emphasize  at  great  length  its  remarkable  speed.  Mr.  A  barely 
mentions  the  speed  of  his  auto,  and  lays  great  stress  on  its  safety. 
As  a  matter  of  fact  both  machines  are  equally  fast  and  equally  safe ; 
but  the  lady  gets  the  impression  that  yours  is  more  remarkable 
for  speed  than  safety,  since  you  emphasized  speed  more;  and  that 
A's  excels  in  safety  rather  than  speed,  since  it  was  on  safety  that 
53 


54 


ENGLISH  COMPOSITION 


he  laid  special  stress.  The  consequence  is  that  A  gets  her  order, 
and  you  are  out  of  pocket  because  you  did  not  understand  Empha- 
sis in  English  Composition. 

Now  there  are  two  common  methods  by  which  you  can  em- 
phasize your  important  points  in  a  theme.  The  first  method  is 
simply  to  say  more  about  those  points,  to  have  the  paragraphs 
about  them  longer  than  the  others.  The  mere  fact  that  you  write 
twice  as  much  about  Point  i  as  about  Point  2  makes  your  reader 
assume  naturally  that  you  are  more  interested  in  Point  i.  This 
cannot  always  be  done.  Sometimes  an  unimportant  topic  is  so 
complicated  that  you  cannot  explain  it  in  a  few  words;  and  again 
a  very  important  one  may  be  so  simple  that  it  is  hard  to  say  much 
about  it  without  being  "windy."  Even  in  these  cases,  however, 
the  emphasis  should  make  a  difference.  If  a  minor  point  is  com- 
plicated, the  very  fact  that  it  is  a  minor  point  means  that  you  do 
not  need  to  explain  all  its  little  details  so  carefully;  and  even  if  a 
valuable  point  is  very  simple,  it  is  often  worth  while  to  show  not 
only  what  it  is  but  also  why  it  is  so  important.  And  in  all  cases 
where  it  can  be  conveniently  done  the  important  topics  should 
receive  the  most  space.  If  you  neglect  this  precaution  you  must 
not  blame  your  readers  for  getting  confused  as  to  the  relative 
value  of  things.  You  may  think  the  good  points  of  your  native 
place  far  outweigh  the  bad  ones;  but  if  you  write  four  hundred 
words  about  its  defects  and  one  hundred  about  its  advantages  you 
must  not  blame  your  readers  if  they  speak  of  it  afterward  as  "a 
stupid  little  spot."  They  are  not  mind-readers;  they  simply  see 
that  you  have  emphasized  one  point  more  than  the  other;  and  they 
assume  mistakenly,  alas !  —  that  you  knew  what  you  were  about. 

The  second  method  of  getting  Emphasis  is  by  arrangement. 
When  possible,  you  should  put  your  most  important  points  in  the 
most  emphatic  parts  of  your  theme.  Now  the  most  emphatic 
position  in  the  whole  composition  is  at  the  end ;  and  the  next  most 
important  is  usually  at  the  start.  Readers  and  listeners  are  only 
human;  they  cannot  pay  equally  strict  attention  all  the  time. 
They  begin  with  the  best  of  resolutions  and  follow  every  word  for 
the  first  few  sentences.  Then  their  nervous  tension  relaxes ;  and 
through  the  middle  of  the  theme  they  accompany  you  with  only 
a  languid  interest.  Toward  the  end  they  begin  to  feel  that  they 


EMPHASIS   IN    THE   WHOLE  COMPOSITION  55 

are  losing  something,  and  make  a  frantic  brace  to  learn  the  gist 
of  the  whole  essay  from  the  closing  paragraph.  Consequently, 
things  which  are  said  at  the  beginning  and  end,  but  especially  at 
the  end,  sink  deeper  into  the  mind  than  those  which  are  said  in 
the  middle.  If  you  doubt  this,  study  your  own  sensations  when 
reading  and  listening  to  lectures.  If  you  still  doubt  that  things 
assume  new  importance  when  put  at  the  very  end,  consider  how 
it  works  in  a  few  everyday  phrases.  The  naughty  child  when  he 
is  caught  instinctively  cries :  " I  did  it;  but  I'll  never  do  it  again." 
Wise  Mother  Nature  has  taught  him  to  emphasize  the  fact  that 
he  will  never  sin  again  by  putting  it  last ;  and  this  emphasized  fact 
often  so  impresses  parents  that  the  proposed  whipping  is  averted. 
On  the  other  hand,  if  he  had  said:  "I'll  never  do  it  again;  but 
I  did  it,"  the  awful  fact  that,  in  spite  of  all  good  resolutions  for  the 
future,  he  actually  had  done  it  would  nerve  the  parent's  hand  to 
the  stern  task  of  justice. 

In  some  cases  it  may  not  be  possible  to  put  the  most  important 
points  in  the  emphatic  places,  because  Coherence  may  demand  a 
different  order.  If  Coherence  and  Emphasis  clash,  Coherence 
should  always  have  the  right  of  way.  Such  cases,  however,  are 
rare.  As  a  general  thing  you  should  put  your  most  important 
topic  at  the  end  as  a  climax,  and  also  put  one  of  your  next  most 
important  points  at  the  beginning  to  give  your  composition  an 
energetic  start.  **W"  v^t  ^V*-^  "  c~o  i~^4  »-  "1.,  ,  ,  " 

Below  are  given  two  illustrations  of  good  emphasis.  In  the 
first  we  have  several  different  topics  of  unequal  value,  of  which 
the  most  important  is  put  at  the  end  and  also  given  the  most  space. 
The  second  develops  a  single  main  idea  throughout  and  hammers 
it  home  with  a  final,  extra  heavy  blow  at  the  finish. 

PRESENT  RELATIONS  OF  THE  LEARNED   PROFES- 
SIONS TO   POLITICAL  GOVERNMENT1 

W.   H.   TAFT 

It  is  the  duty  of  every  citizen,  no  matter  what  his  profession, 
business,  or  trade,  to  give  as  much  attention  as  he  can  to  the  public 
weal,  and  to  take  as  much  interest  as  he  can  in  political  matters. 

1  Used  by  the  kind  permission  of  the  author,  Hon.  William  H.  Taft. 


56  ENGLISH   COMPOSITION 

Americans  generally  have  recognized  these  duties,  and  the  result 
is  that  we  find  active  in  political  life,  prominent  in  the  legislature 
and  executive  councils  of  the  government,  men  representing  all 
professions,  all  branches  of  business,  and  all  trades.  Perhaps 
the  expression  "representing"  is  not  fortunate,  because  they  are 
not  elected  by  guilds  or  professions  or  crafts,  and  they  do  not 
represent  their  fellows  in  the  sense  of  being  required  to  look  after 
their  peculiar  interests.  What  I  mean  is  that  among  public  men 
who  enact  laws  and  enforce  them  may  be  found  those  who  in  early 
life  at  least  have  had  experience  in  every  business,  every  craft,  and 
every  profession.  Nevertheless,  as  political  and  governmental 
necessities  change,  they  have  a  tendency  to  increase  the  number 
taken  from  one  profession  or  another  for  reasons  that  can  be 
distinctly  traced;  and  I  propose  this  morning  to  invite  your  at- 
tention to  the  present  relation  of  each  of  the  learned  professions 
to  politics  and  government.  It  seems  to  me  that  such  a  subject 
may  well  have  interest  for  those  who  have  finished  an  academic 
career  and  are  looking  about  to  select  a  profession  for  themselves. 
The  first  profession  is  that  of  the  ministry.  Time  was,  in  New 
England,  and  in  every  other  part  of  the  country  under  the  in- 
fluence of  its  traditions,  when  the  minister  of  the  Congregational 
church,  in  addition  to  that  of  his  sacred  office,  exercised  a  most 
powerful  influence  which  was  of  a  distinctly  political  character. 
His  views  on  the  issues  of  the  day  were  considered  of  the  greatest 
weight  in  the  community  in  which  he  lived,  and  he  ranked  every 
one  as  its  first  citizen.  This  was  in  the  days  when  New  England 
might  almost  be  called  a  "theocracy";  when  it  was  deemed  wise 
and  politically  proper  to  regulate  by  law,  to  the  minutest  detail, 
the  manner  of  life  of  men,  and  as  these  laws  were  understood  to 
be  framed  in  accord  with  moral  and  religious  requirements,  the 
minister  of  the  community  was  the  highest  authority  as  to  what 
the  law  should  be  and  how  it  ought  to  be  enforced.  Great  changes 
have  come  over  our  methods  of  life  since  that  day.  Then  the 
ministry,  because  of  the  rewards  in  the  way  of  influence,  power, 
and  prominence,  attracted  the  ablest  of  educated  minds,  and  the 
ability  and  force  of  character  were  where  power  and  influence 
resided.  But  the  spread  of  education  and  independent  thinking, 
the  wide  diffusion  of  knowledge  and  news  by  the  press,  the  enor- 


EMPHASIS  IN   THE  WHOLE  COMPOSITION  57 

mous  material  development  of  the  country,  the  vast  increase  in 
wealth,  the  increase  in  rewards  and  influence  of  other  vocations, 
the  disappearance  of  the  simple  village  life,  have  all  contributed 
to  change  radically  the  position  and  influence  of  the  ministry  in 
the  community.  To-day  it  is  not  true  that  that  profession  attracts 
the  ablest  young  men,  and  this  I  think  is  a  distinct  loss  to  our 
society,  for  it  is  of  the  utmost  importance  that  the  profession  whose 
peculiar  duty  it  is  to  maintain  high  moral  standards  and  to  arouse 
the  best  that  there  is  in  man,  to  stir  him  to  higher  aspirations, 
should  have  the  genius  and  brilliancy  with  which  successfully  to 
carry  out  this  function.  Of  course  the  profession  of  the  ministry  is 
supposed  to  have  to  do  largely  with  the  kingdom  of  the  next  world 
rather  than  with  this,  and  many  people  expect  to  find  in  the  rep- 
resentatives of  the  profession  only  an  other-worldliness  and  no 
thought  of  this.  This  is  of  course  the  narrowest  view  of  the  pro- 
fession. Whatever  the  next  world,  we  are  certainly  under  the 
highest  obligation  to  make  the  best  of  this,  and  the  ministers  should 
be  the  chief  instruments  in  making  this  world  morally  and  re- 
ligiously better.  It  is  utterly  impossible  to  separate  politics  from 
the  lives  of  the  community,  and  there  cannot  be  general  personal 
and  social  business  morality  and  political  immorality  at  the  same 
time.  The  latter  will  ultimately  debauch  the  whole  community. 

During  the  administration  of  Mr.  Roosevelt,  and  under  the  in- 
fluence of  certain  revelations  of  business  immorality,  the  con- 
science of  the  whole  country  was  shocked  and  then  nerved  to  the 
point  of  demanding  that  a  better  order  of  affairs  be  introduced. 
In  this  movement,  the  ministers  of  the  various  churches  have 
recognized  the  call  upon  them  to  assist,  and  they  have  been  heard 
the  country  over  in  accents  much  more  effective  than  ever  before, 
in  half  a  century.     They  have  not  all  always  been  discreet.     They^ 
have  sometimes  attempted  to  make  the  moral  reforms  by  law 
wider  than  practical  experience  would  justify.     Indeed,  the  tend-  •£ 
ency  of  some  ministers  in   taking  part  in  politics  and  seeking 
governmental  reform,  is  to  demand  too  close  a  realization  of  their 
ideals,  and  an  unwillingness  to  give  up  the  accomplishment  of 
some  for  decided  progress  towards  others.     This  is  a  limitation 
upon  their  usefulness. 

In  two  ways  the  minister  is  becoming  more  closely  in  touch  with 


5g  ENGLISH   COMPOSITION 

politics  and  governmental  affairs.  In  the  first  place  the  modern 
tendency  of  government  is  paternal.  Individualism  is  not  dead, 
but  the  laissez-faire  school  does  not  have  its  earnest  and  con- 
sistently rigid  adherents  now  as  it  did  years  ago.  We  all  recognize, 
I  think,  or  at  least  most  of  us  do,  that  there  is  certain  aid,  there  is 
certain  protection  that  the  government  is  in  duty  bound,  acting 
for  all  the  people,  to  extend  to  a  smaller  number  of  the  people 
whose  circumstances  and  condition  forbid  their  looking  out  for 
themselves.  Thus  in  the  enforcement  of  health  regulations,  in 
the  passage  of  tenement  laws,  child  labor  laws,  establishment  of 
orphan  asylums  and  places  of  refuge  for  waifs,  and  in  many  other 
ways,  the  work  of  the  minister  in  home  missions  brings  him  in 
contact  with  necessity  for  government  action,  and  he  is  heard,  and 
is  entitled  to  be  heard,  upon  the  policies  of  the  government  in  these 
regards. 

So,  too,  in  the  matter  of  foreign  missions.  The  greatest  agency 
to-day  in  keeping  us  advised  of  the  conditions  among  Oriental 
races,  who,  however  old  their  traditions  and  their  civilizations,  are 
now  tending  toward  Occidental  ideals,  is  the  establishment  of 
foreign  missions  as  the  outposts  of  the  advance  guard  of  Christian 
civilization.  These  missions  have  the  duty  of  representing  the 
ideal  of  western  Christian  progress  and  through  them  such  prog- 
ress is  to  be  commended  to  the  races  whom  it  is  hoped  we  may 
induce  to  accept  that  same  civilization.  The  leaders  of  these 
missionary  branches  of  the  churches  are  now  becoming  some  of 
our  most  learned  statesmen  in  respect  of  our  proper  Oriental 
policies,  and  they  are  to  be  reckoned  with  by  the  men  more  im- 
mediately charged  with  the  responsibility  of  initiating  and  carry- 
ing on  such  policies. 

The  next  profession  is  that  of  the  teacher.  Of  course,  the 
great  number  of  teachers  are  engaged  in  primary  and  secondary 
instruction  and  in  industrial  or  vocational  work.  Their  relation 
to  politics  and  government  is  of  the  utmost  importance,  though 
indirect.  It  is  and  ought  to  be  their  highest  duty  to  instill  in  the 
minds  of  the  young  girls  and  boys  the  patriotism  and  love  of  country, 
because  the  boy  is  father  to  the  man  and  the  patriotism  of  the 
extreme  youth  of  the  country  may  well  determine  that  of  the 
grown  men.  The  effect  of  an  intense  patriotism  which  thrills 


EMPHASIS   L\    THE   WHOLE   COMPOSITION  59 

through  the  nerves  of  the  boys  of  a  country  is  illustrated  in  the 
immense  strength  which  Japan  derives  from  it.  No  one  who 
visits  that  interesting  country  or  comes  into  contact  with  the 
Japanese  can  avoid  seeing  its  effect.  The  term  "Bushido"  is 
a  kind  of  apotheosis  of  patriotism.  The  joy  with  which  Japanese 
give  up  their  lives  in  defense  of  their  country  has  its  foundation  in 
a  real  religious  feeling,  and  is  most  inspiring  to  all  who  come  to 
know  it.  It  should  be  full  of  significance  to  those  of  the  teaching 
profession  who  become  responsible  for  the  thoughts  and  ideals 
of  the  young. 

Another  way  in  which  the  professional  teacher  may  exercise 
great  indirect  political  influence  is  in  the  encouragement  that  he 
ought  to  give  to  the  young  men  of  college  age  and  life  in  the  study 
and  pursuit  of  politics.  Every  curriculum  of  every  academic 
institution  now  includes  the  study  of  political  economy,  the  study 
of  sociology,  the  study  of  government,  and  often  the  study  of  con- 
stitutional law.  These  taken  together,  with  the  political  history 
of  England  and  the  United  States,  cannot  but  arouse  in  the  minds 
of  most  American  students  an  interest  in  the  government  of  their 
country  and  in  present-day  politics,  to  the  point  of  taking  part  in 
them  when  opportunity  offers.  It  is  most  encouraging  to  know 
the  great  attention  that  is  given  to-day  in  all  the  universities  to  the 
encouragement  of  political  and  economical  discussion  among  the 
students,  and  the  eagerness  with  which  they  read  and  listen  to 
those  problems,  the  solution  of  which  is  giving  the  men  in  actual 
political  power  anxiety  and  labor. 

A  third  profession  which  exercises  some  of  the  functions  of  the 
ministry  and  some  of  those  of  the  teacher,  is  that  of  the  writer. 
His  profession  may  be  literature  and  embrace  the  poet,  the  his- 
torian, the  novelist,  the  critic; or  may  be  journalism,  and  include 
the  editor,  correspondent  and  the  news  gatherer  or  city  reporter. 
In  many  aspects,  writing  is  a  profession;  in  others  when  it  is 
reduced  merely  to  the  purveying  and  sale  of  news,  it  is  a  business. 
When  conducted  on  the  highest  plane,  it  exerts  as  much  influence 
for  good  as  the  ministry,  and  has  a  wider  range,  and  indeed  has 
probably  robbed  the  profession  of  part  of  its  usefulness  because 
it  has  become  a  substitute  for  it  with  many  persons  and  in  many 
families.  Its  power  of  public  instruction  is  very  great ;  but  when 


60  ENGLISH  COMPOSITION 

it  panders  to  the  vulgarest  taste  for  sensationalism  and  becomes 
entirely  irresponsible  in  respect  to  its  influence  for  good,  and  its 
statement  of  the  truth,  its  pernicious  tendency  is  obviated  only  by 
the  power  of  the  people  to  protect  themselves  against  it  by  a  safe 
discrimination  and  a  healthy  skepticism,  and  a  clear  understand- 
ing of  its  recklessness  and  baser  motive.  The  close  relation  be- 
tween journalism  and  politics  and  the  carrying  on  of  a  government, 
no  one  who  has  been  in  the  slightest  degree  familiar  with  the  course 
of  a  popular  government,  can  ignore.  The  people  demand  to 
know  what  their  servants  in  the  legislature,  in  the  executive,  and 
on  the  bench  are  doing,  and  the  chief,  if  not  the  only,  method  by 
which  they  are  made  aware  of  the  character  of  the  service  rendered 
to  them  is  through  the  press.  The  unjust  color  sometimes  given 
through  jaundiced  editors  and  correspondents  has  an  injurious 
effect,  but  fortunately  in  the  number  of  newspapers  and  in  the 
variety  of  motives  that  affect  those  who  furnish  the  news,  such  in- 
justice is  generally  remedied.  The  great  body  of  the  people  who 
have  discriminating  common  sense  are  enabled  to  reach  with 
considerable  accuracy  the  truthful  verdict  and  judgment  in  respect 
to  political  affairs. 

The  next  profession  for  consideration  in  its  relation  to  govern- 
mental matter  is  that  of  medicine.  Until  very  recently,  its  influence 
has  been  practically  nothing  in  a  professional  way.  There  have 
been  physicians  who  have  given  up  their  practice  and  gone  into 
politics;  but  there  was  some  trait  of  theirs  adapted  to  success  in 
politics  that  had  little  or  nothing  to  do  with  the  practice  of  their 
profession.  They  have  become  more  interested  in  government 
of  late  years  because  the  functions  of  government  have  widened, 
and  now  embrace  in  a  real  and  substantial  way  the  preservation  of 
the  health  of  all  the  people.  The  effect  which  imperfect  drainage, 
bad  water,  impure  food,  ill-ventilated  houses,  and  a  failure  to 
isolate  contagion  have  in  killing  people  has  become  more  and  more 
apparent  with  the  study  which  great  sanitary  authorities  have 
given  to  the  matter,  and  has  imposed  much  more  distinctly  and 
unequivocally  the  burden  upon  municipal,  state,  and  federal  govern- 
ment of  looking  after  the  public  health.  The  expansion  of  our 
Government  into  the  Tropics,  the  necessity  of  maintaining  our 
armies  and  navies  there  and  of  supporting  a  great  force  of  work- 


EMPHASIS  IN    THE   WHOLE  COMPOSITION  6 1 

men  in  the  construction  of  such  an  enterprise  as  that  of  the  Panama 
canal,  have  greatly  exalted  the  importance  of  the  discoveries  of  the 
medical  profession  in  respect  to  the  prevention  and  cure  of  human 
disease  and  of  diseases  of  domestic  animals. 

The  triumph  which  has  been  reached  in  the  name  of  the  medical 
profession  in  the  discovery  as  to  the  real  causes  of  yellow  fever  and 
malaria  and  the  suppression  of  those  diseases  by  killing  or  pre- 
venting the  propagation  or  the  infection  of  the  mosquito,  is  one  of 
the  wonders  of  human  progress.  It  has  made  the  construction 
of  the  Panama  canal  possible.  It  has  rendered  life  in  the  Tropics 
for  immigrants  from  the  Temperate  Zone  consistent  with  health 
and  reasonable  length  of  life,  and  it  has  opened  possibilities  in 
the  improvement  of  the  health  and  strength  of  Tropical  races 
themselves  under  governmental  teaching,  assistance,  and  super- 
vision that  were  unthought  of  two  decades  ago.  Sanitary  engineer- 
ing with  its  proper  treatment  of  water,  making  it  wholesome  and 
harmless,  with  its  removal  of  the  filth  and  sewage  and  its  con- 
version of  what  was  noxious  into  most  useful  agencies,  all  confirm 
the  governmental  importance  of  the  profession  of  medicine  and 
the  kindred  technical  profession  of  chemistry,  engineering,  and 
all  branches  of  physical  research.  So  marked  has  been  this  in- 
crease in  the  importance  of  the  medical  profession  in  governmental 
agencies  that  the  doctors  themselves  have  organized  a  movement 
for  the  unification  of  all  agencies  in  the  federal  government  used 
to  promote  the  public  health,  in  one  bureau  or  department,  at  the 
head  of  which  they  wish  to  put  a  man  of  their  own  or  kindred  branch 
of  science.  How  near  this  movement  will  come  in  accomplishing 
the  complete  purpose  of  its  promoters,  only  the  national  legislature 
can  tell.  Certainly  the  economy  of  the  union  of  all  health  agencies 
of  the  national  government  in  one  bureau  or  department  is  wise. 
Whether  at  the  head  of  that  department  should  be  put  a  doctor  of 
medicine  or  some  other  person  must  depend  on  the  individual  and 
not  on  his  technical  professional  learning  or  skill.  It  is  the  capacity 
to  organize,  coordinate,  and  execute  that  is  needed  at  the  head  of 
a  department,  and  not  so  much  deep  or  broad  technical  and  pro- 
fessional skill.  It  is  the  ability  to  judge  whether  others  have  such 
technical  or  professional  skill  that  the  head  of  the  department  who 
makes  the  selection  of  the  members  of  his  department  should  be 


62  ENGLISH    COMPOSITION 

endowed  with.  However  this  may  be,  it  is  becoming  more  and 
more  clear  that  the  extending  of  governmental  duties  into  a  territory 
covered  by  the  profession  of  medicine  is  bringing  physicians  more 
and  more  into  political  and  governmental  relation,  and  we  may 
expect  that  in  the  next  decade  they  will  play  a  far  greater  part  than 
they  have  heretofore;  and  it  is  proper  that  they  should. 

I  may  stop  here  to  mention  other  technical  professions  like 
those  of  the  chemist,  soil  expert,  botanist,  horticulturist,  forester, 
meteorologist,  and  the  student  of  general  agricultural  science, 
all  of  whom  must  be  consulted  and  have  been  consulted  in  the 
improvement  of  our  agriculture,  and  in  that  movement  generally 
characterized  as  a  conservation  of  our  natural  resources.  The 
waste  which  is  going  on  to-day  in  our  forest,  water,  and  soil  supplies 
has  been  brought  to  the  attention  of  the  public  in  startling  statistics 
by  the  President  and  the  Commission,  whose  report  he  has  trans- 
mitted to  Congress,  and  such  conservation  may  well  be  considered 
with  conservation  of  human  life,  in  the  progress  of  governmental 
sanitation,  hygiene,  and  the  preventives  and  cure  of  disease  by 
quarantine  and  health  regulations.  We  must  look  in  the  future  to 
great  development  in  all  these  branches  and  to  prominence  in 
political  power  and  authority  of  those  who  shall  succeed  in  effecting 
a  reduction  in  the  loss  of  human  life  from  preventable  disease  and 
a  saving  of  the  national  resources.  The  Department  of  Agriculture 
is  expanding  in  its  usefulness  and  in  the  scope  of  its  functions,  and 
exercises  a  power  directly  beneficial  to  the  production  and  sale 
of  farm  products  and  the  profit  of  the  farmer  that  no  one  could 
have  anticipated  at  the  time  of  its  creation  and  organization.  This 
will  bring  even  more  into  political  prominence  than  heretofore 
the  scientific  farmer  generally  familiar  with  the  needs  of  agriculture 
throughout  the  country  and  able  to  understand  the  intricacies  of 
the  policy  of  foreign  governments  in  the  admission  and  exclusion 
of  our  farm  products. 

We  come  finally  to  the  profession  of  the  law.  With  the  ex- 
ception perhaps  of  the  profession  of  arms,  law  has  always  been  in 
all  countries  most  prominent  in  political  and  governmental  matters. 
This  is  so  because  in  a  wide  sense  the  profession  of  the  law  is  the 
profession  of  government,  or  at  least  it  is  the  profession  in  the 
course  of  which  agencies  of  the  government  are  always  used,  and 


EMPHASIS  IN   THE   WHOLE  COMPOSITION  63 

in  which  the  principles  applied  are  those  which  affect  either  the 
relations  between  individuals  or  the  relation  between  the  govern- 
ment and  individuals  and  all  of  which  are  denned  by  what,  for 
want  of  a  better  term,  is  called  "municipal  law."  It  is  natural 
that  those  whose  business  it  is  to  construe  laws,  and  whose  pro- 
fession it  is  to  know  what  existing  law  is,  should  be  called  upon 
in  the  framing  of  new  laws,  to  act  an  important  part.  It  was 
natural  that  the  framers  of  the  Constitution,  which  was  to  be  the 
fundamental  law  of  the  land,  and  to  embody  the  limitations  upon 
the  central  government,  deemed  necessary  in  favor  of  the  separate 
states,  should  be  those  who  knew  the  laws  of  the  separate  states 
and  who  had  the  professional  capacity  of  drafting  written  laws. 
The  creative  function  of  the  lawyer,  as  distinguished  from  his  ana- 
lytical function,  is  to  put  in  written  and  legal  form  the  intention 
of  the  person  or  persons  which  he  wishes  to  make  effective;  if  it 
be  that  of  a  people,  through  the  legislature,  then  in  the  form  of  a 
statute;  if  it  be  that  of  an  agreement  of  individuals,  then  in  the 
form  of  a  written  contract ;  if  it  be  the  desire  of  the  executive,  then 
in  the  form  of  an  executive  order.  He  must  analyze  the  purposes 
of  those  for  whom  he  acts,  and  then  be  the  careful  draftsman  of 
the  instrument  which  shall  correctly  and  truly  embody  that  pur- 
pose. Thus  it  has  been  that  in  all  conventions,  in  all  legislatures, 
in  the  great  majority  of  public  offices,  we  find  the  lawyers  to  have 
been  selected  to  carry  on  governmental  work,  and  this  has  not  been 
alone  due  to  their  knowledge  of  the  law  and  their  training  in  the 
drafting  and  forming  of  legal  expression  of  the  public  will;  but 
also  in  the  fact  that  the  necessities  of  their  profession  require  them 
constantly  to  practice  the  temporary  acquisition  of  technical 
knowledge  of  all  other  professions  and  all  other  businesses  in 
order  that  they  may  properly  present  in  forensic  controversies  the 
issues  involved,  or  in  negotiations  involving  technical  matters  may 
be  sufficiently  advised  of  the  general  principles  of  other  professions 
and  business  to  enable  them  correctly  to  interpret  and  embody 
the  result  of  the  negotiation  in  language  that  shall  express  the 
meaning  of  the  parties.  To  put  it  in  a  different  way,  the  business 
of  the  lawyer  is  not  only  to  fight  lawsuits,  but  it  is  to  tell  the  people 
who  desire  to  accomplish  certain  results  how  such  results  can 
legally  be  accomplished,  and  by  writing  and  instruction  to  bring 


64  ENGLISH  COMPOSITION 

about  such  results  under  the  forms  of  law.  This  is  executive.  In 
other  words,  this  executive  faculty  is  a  very  marked  necessity  in 
the  successful  practice  of  the  modern  lawyer.  With  him  the  power 
of  initiation  and  of  devising  the  methods  of  accomplishment  are 
frequently  the  secret  of  his  professional  success.  Of  course  a 
great  advocate  is  a  great  lawyer.  In  the  presentation  of  the  case 
of  the  controversy  to  court,  there  is  called  out  his  power  of  lucid 
statement,  of  analysis,  and  of  forcible  presentation  of  the  arguments 
iii  favor  of  his  client;  and  the  great  judge  is  ordinarily  the  great 
analyst  who  with  common  sense  and  the  judicial  quality  has  the 
proper  sense  of  proportion,  which  enables  him  to  weigh  and  decide 
in  favor  of  the  better  reason.  But  the  lawyer,  and  especially  the 
modern  lawyer,  whose  business  is  in  organizing  corporations  and 
partnerships,  in  the  setting  going  of  enterprises,  has  the  counter- 
part of  these  functions  to  perform,  and  that  is  the  power  of  initia- 
tion, of  drawing  contracts,  and  of  drafting  statutes  to  effect  the 
purpose,  either  of  his  client  or  the  people,  as  his  duty  may  be. 

Now  I  am  far  from  being  blind  to  the  defects  and  weaknesses 
of  the  profession  of  the  law,  of  which  I  once  had  the  honor  to  be 
a  member.  Lawyers  are  frequently  a  conservative  class.  They 
adhere  to  the  things  that  are,  simply  because  they  are,  and  re- 
luctantly admit  the  necessity  for  change.  When  the  business 
community  yields  to  temptation  and  goes  into  practices  that  have 
an  evil  tendency,  members  of  the  profession  are  always  found  who, 
for  professional  compensation,  can  be  induced  to  promote  the 
success  of  such  business  methods ;  and  the  combinations  to 
regulate  the  output  and  control  of  prices  of  various  classes  of  mer- 
chandise, and  to  stifle  competition  by  methods  which  have  had 
statutory  denunciation,  and  which  it  has  been  the  purpose  of  the 
national  administration  to  restrain,  repress,  and  stamp  out,  could 
only  have  been  as  powerful  and  successful  as  they  have  been,  through 
the  manipulation,  acuteness,  and  creative  faculty  of  members  of 
the  legal  profession.  But  on  the  other  hand,  when  statutory  re- 
forms are  to  be  effected,  especially  in  business  methods  and  by 
introducing  limitations  upon  the  use  of  private  property,  so  as  to 
stamp  out  the  evil  involved  in  combinations  of  capital,  and  at  the 
same  time  not  destroy  that  enormous  benefit  inuring  to  the  public 
and  insuring  commercial  progress  of  such  combinations,  the  work 


EMPHASIS  IN   THE  WHOLE  COMPOSITION  65 

of  drafting  the  statutes  and  enforcing  them,  so  as  to  secure  higher 
and  better  business  methods  without  impairing  the  means  of  busi- 
ness progress,  must  ultimately  fall  to  the  members  of  the  legal 
profession.  It  is  members  of  that  profession  of  the  Supreme  Court 
who  are  to  determine  whether  such  limitations  are  within  the  con- 
stitutional power  of  Congress.  It  is  the  members  of  the  legal  pro- 
fession on  the  trial  Courts  and  the  Supreme  Courts  that  are  to 
construe  the  statutes  and  enforce  the  ultimate  penalties  for  their 
violation.  It  must  be,  not  wholly,  but  chiefly,  members  of  the 
legal  profession  that  shall  draft  the  amendments  to  the  federal 
and  state  statutes  which  shall  give  such  organization  and  efficiency 
to  government  machinery  on  the  one  hand  and  such  clever  defi- 
nition of  the  limitations  of  the  combinations  of  capital  on  the 
other,  that  shall  uphold  legitimate  business  progress  on  the  one 
hand  and  strike  down  vicious  abuses  on  the  other.  Hence  it  is 
that  to-day,  no  less  than  at  the  foundation  of  our  government,  the 
profession  of  the  law  is  the  most  important  in  its  relation  to  politics 
and  political  government.  .  .  . 

National  exigency  seems  to  call  forth,  as  if  by  aid  of  a  special  » 
Providence,  the  men  peculiarly  fitted  to  meet  the  requirements  of 
the  situation.     Such  were  Lincoln  and  Grant  during  the  great   I 
Civil  War.     Such  in  the  Revolution  was  Washington,  the  anni-  ' 
versary  of  whose  birthday  this  University  appropriately  makes  its  - 
festal  day.    He  was  not  a  lawyer  or  a  doctor  or  a  minister.     He  was 
a  surveyor  and  farmer ;  as  a  student  of  military  science  only  in  the 
hard  school  of  experience,  his  profession  may  be  said  to  have  been 
that  of  arms.     Not  brilliant,  not  facile,  not  eloquent,  he  had  those 
qualities  which  placed  him  far  above  the  brilliant,  facile,  able,  and 
learned  men  who  were  gathered  about  him  in  the  struggle  for 
American  independence.     He  was  a  leader  of  men.     His  pure, 
disinterested  patriotism,  his  freedom  from  small  jealousies,  his 
marvelous    common    sense,    his    indomitable    perseverance    and 
patience,  and  his  serenity  and  calm  under  the  most  trying  circum- 
stances, gave  him  the  victory  —  a  victory  which  could  be  traced, 
not  to  brilliant  genius  or  professional  training,  but  to  that  which 
of  all  things  is  the  most  to  be  pursued  and  desired  —  to  his  high 
character  as  a  man. 


66  ENGLISH  COMPOSITION 

GAMES ' 

A.    C.    BENSON 

It  requires  almost  more  courage  to  write  about  games  nowadays 
than  it  does  to  write  about  the  Decalogue,  because  the  higher 
criticism  is  tending  to  make  a  belief  in  the  Decalogue  a  matter  of 
taste,  while  to  the  ordinary  Englishman  a  belief  in  games  is  a 
matter  of  faith  and  morals. 

I  will  begin  by  saying  frankly  that  I  do  not  like  games ;  but  I  say 
it,  not  because  any  particular  interest  attaches  to  my  own  dislikes 
and  likes,  but  to  raise  a  little  flag  of  revolt  against  a  species  of 
social  tyranny.  I  believe  that  there  are  a  good  many  people  who 
do  not  like  games,  but  who  do  not  dare  to  say  so.  Perhaps  it  may 
be  thought  that  I  am  speaking  from  the  point  of  view  of  a  person 
who  has  never  been  able  to  play  them.  A  vision  rises  in  the  mind 
of  a  spectacled  owlish  man,  trotting  feebly  about  a  football  field, 
and  making  desperate  attempts  to  avoid  the  proximity  of  the  ball ; 
or  joining  in  a  game  of  cricket,  and  fielding  a  drive  with  the  air  of 
a  man  trying  to  catch  an  insect  on  the  ground,  or  sitting  in  a  boat 
with  the  oar  fixed  under  his  chin,  being  forced  backwards  with  an 
air  of  smiling  and  virtuous  confusion.  I  hasten  to  say  that  this  is 
not  a  true  picture.  I  arrived  at  a  reasonable  degree  of  proficiency 
in  several  games:  I  was  a  competent,  though  not  a  zealous,  oar; 
I  captained  a  college  football  team,  and  I  do  not  hesitate  to  say 
that  I  have  derived  more  pleasure  from  football  than  from  any 
other  form  of  exercise.  I  have  climbed  some  mountains,  and  am 
even  a  member  of  the  Alpine  Club;  I  may  add  that  I  am  a  keen, 
though  not  a  skilful,  sportsman,  and  am  indeed  rather  a  martyr 
to  exercise  and  open  air.  I  make  these  confessions  simply  to  show 
that  I  do  not  approach  the  subject  from  the  point  of  view  of  a 
sedentary  person,  but  indeed  rather  the  reverse.  No  weather 
appears  to  me  to  be  too  bad  to  go  out  in,  and  I  do  not  suppose  there 
are  a  dozen  days  in  the  year  in  which  I  do  not  contrive  to  get 
exercise. 

1  From  From  a  College  Window,  by  A.  C.  Benson.  Used  by  the  kind  per- 
mission of  the  publishers,  G.  P.  Putnam's  Sons,  New  York  and  London. 


EMPHASIS  IN   THE  WHOLE  COMPOSITION  67 

But  exercise  in  the  open  air  is  one  thing,  and  games  are  quite 
another.  It  seems  to  me  that  when  a  man  has  reached  an  age  of 
discretion  he  ought  no  longer  to  need  the  stimulus  of  competition, 
the  desire  to  hit  or  kick  balls  about,  the  wish  to  do  such  things 
better  than  other  people.  It  seems  to  me  that  the  elaborate  or- 
ganization of  athletics  is  a  really  rather  serious  thing,  because  it 
makes  people  unable  to  get  on  without  some  species  of  excitement. 
I  was  staying  the  other  day  at  a  quiet  house  in  the  country,  where 
there  was  nothing  particular  to  do ;  there  was  not,  strange  to  say, 
even  a  golf  course  within  reach.  There  came  to  stay  there  for  a  few 
days  an  eminent  golfer,  who  fell  into  a  condition  of  really  pitiable 
dejection.  The  idea  of  taking  a  walk  or  riding  a  bicycle  was  in- 
supportable to  him;  and  I  think  he  never  left  the  house  except 
for  a  rueful  stroll  in  the  garden.  When  I  was  a  schoolmaster  it 
used  to  distress  me  to  find  how  invariably  the  parents  of  boys  dis- 
coursed with  earnestness  and  solemnity  about  a  boy's  games; 
one  was  told  that  a  boy  was  a  good  field,  and  really  had  the  makings 
of  an  excellent  bat;  eager  inquiries  were  made  as  to  whether  it 
was  possible  for  the  boy  to  get  some  professional  coaching; 
in  the  case  of  more  philosophically  inclined  parents  it  generally 
led  on  to  a  statement  of  the  social  advantages  of  being  a  good 
cricketer,  and  often  to  the  expression  of  a  belief  that  virtue  was 
in  some  way  indissolubly  connected  with  keenness  in  games. 
For  one  parent  who  said  anything  about  a  boy's  intellectual  in- 
terests, there  were  ten  whose  preoccupation  in  the  boy's  athletics 
was  deep  and  vital. 

It  is  no  wonder  that,  with  all  this  parental  earnestness,  boys 
tended  to  consider  success  in  games  the  one  paramount  object  of 
their  lives;  it  was  all  knit  up  with  social  ambitions,  and  it  was 
viewed,  I  do  not  hesitate  to  say,  as  of  infinitely  more  importance 
than  anything  else.  I  do  not  mean  to  say  that  many  of  the  boys 
did  not  consider  it  important  to  be  good,  and  did  not  desire  to  be 
conscientious  about  their  work.  But  as  a  practical  matter  games 
were  what  they  thought  about  and  talked  about,  and  what  aroused 
genuine  enthusiasm.  They  were  disposed  to  despise  boys  who 
could  not  play  games,  however  virtuous,  kindly,  and  sensible  they 
might  be;  an  entire  lack  of  conscientiousness,  and  even  grave 
moral  obliquity,  were  apt  to  be  condoned  in  the  case  of  a  successful 


68  EXCLISH   COMPOSITION 

athlete.  We  masters,  I  must  frankly  confess,  did  not  make  any 
serious  attempt  to  fight  the  tendency.  We  spent  our  spare  time 
in  walking  about  the  cricket  and  football  fields,  in  looking  on,  in 
discussing  the  fine  nuances  in  the  style  of  individual  players.  It 
was  very  natural  to  take  an  interest  in  the  thing  which  was  to  the 
boys  a  matter  of  profound  concern ;  but  what  I  should  be  inclined 
to  censure  was  that  it  was  really  a  matter  of  profound  concern  with 
ourselves;  and  we  did  not  take  a  kindly  and  paternal  interest  in 
the  matter,  so  much  as  the  interest  of  enthusiasts  and  partisans. 

It  is  very  difficult  to  see  how  to  alter  this.  Probably,  like  other 
deep-seated  national  tendencies,  it  will  have  to  cure  itself.  It 
would  be  impossible  to  insist  that  the  educators  of  youth  should 
suppress  the  interest  which  they  instinctively  and  genuinely  feel 
in  games,  and  profess  an  interest  in  intellectual  matters  which 
they  do  not  really  feel.  No  good  would  come  out  of  practising 
hypocrisy  in  the  matter,  from  however  high  a  motive.  While 
schoolmasters  rush  off  to  golf  whenever  they  get  a  chance,  and  fill 
their  holidays  to  the  brim  with  games  of  various  kinds,  it  would 
be  simply  hypocritical  to  attempt  to  conceal  the  truth ;  and  the 
difficulty  is  increased  by  the  fact  that,  while  parents  and  boys 
alike  feel  as  they  do  about  the  essential  importance  of  games, 
head-masters  are  more  or  less  bound  to  select  men  for  masterships 
who  are  proficient  in  them;  because,  whatever  else  has  to  be  at- 
tended to  at  school,  games  have  to  be  attended  to ;  and,  moreover, 
a  man  whom  the  boys  respect  as  an  athlete  is  likely  to  be  more 
effective  both  as  a  disciplinarian  and  a  teacher.  If  a  man  is  a  first- 
rate  slow  bowler,  the  boys  will  consider  his  views  on  Thucydides 
and  Euclid  more  worthy  of  consideration  than  the  views  of  a  man 
who  has  only  a  high  university  degree. 

The  other  day  I  was  told  of  the  case  of  a  head-master  of  a  small 
proprietary  private  school,  who  was  treated  with  open  insolence 
and  contempt  by  one  of  his  assistants,  who  neglected  his  work, 
smoked  in  his  class-room,  and  even  absented  himself  on  occasion 
without  leave.  It  may  be  asked  why  the  head-master  did  not 
dismiss  his  recalcitrant  assistant.  It  was  because  he  had  secured 
a  man  who  was  a  'Varsity  cricket-blue,  and  whose  presence  on  the 
staff  gave  the  parents  confidence,  and  provided  an  excellent  ad- 
vertisement. The  assistant,  on  the  other  hand,  knew  that  he 


EMPHASIS  IN    THE   WHOLE  COMPOSITION  69 

could  get  a  similar  post  for  the  asking,  and  on  the  whole  preferred 
a  school  where  he  might  consult  his  own  convenience.  This  is, 
of  course,  an  extreme  case ;  but  would  to  God,  as  Dr.  Johnson  said, 
that  it  were  an  impossible  one!  I  do  not  wish  to  tilt  against 
athletics,  nor  do  I  at  all  undervalue  the  benefits  of  open  air  and 
exercise  for  growing  boys.  But  surely  there  is  a  lamentable  want 
of  proportion  about  the  whole  view !  The  truth  is  that  we  English 
are  in  many  respects  barbarians  still,  and  as  we  happen  at  the 
present  time  to  be  wealthy  barbarians,  we  devote  our  time  and  our 
energies  to  the  things  for  which  we  really  care.  I  do  not  at  all 
want  to  see  games  diminished,  or  played  with  less  keenness.  I 
only  desire  to  see  them  duly  subordinated.  I  do  not  think  it  ought 
to  be  considered  slightly  eccentric  for  a  boy  to  care  very  much 
about  his  work,  or  to  take  an  interest  in  books.  I  should  like  it 
to  be  recognized  at  schools  that  the  one  quality  that  was  admirable 
was  keenness,  and  that  it  was  admirable  in  whatever  department 
it  was  displayed;  but  nowadays  keenness  about  games  is  con- 
sidered admirable  and  heroic,  while  keenness  about  work  or 
books  is  considered  slightly  groveling  and  priggish. 

The  same  spirit  has  affected  what  is  called  sport.  People  no 
longer  look  upon  it  as  an  agreeable  interlude,  but  as  a  business  in 
itself;  they  will  not  accept  invitations  to  shoot,  unless  the  sport 
is  likely  to  be  good ;  a  moderate  performer  with  the  gun  is  treated 
as  if  it  were  a  crime  for  him  to  want  to  shoot  at  all;  then  the 
motoring  craze  has  come  in  upon  the  top  of  the  golfing  craze ;  and 
all  the  spare  time  of  people  of  leisure  tends  to  be  filled  up  with 
bridge.  The  difficulty  in  dealing  with  the  situation  is  that  the 
thing  itself  is  not  only  not  wrong,  but  really  beneficial;  it  is 
better  to  be  occupied  than  to  be  idle,  and  it  is  hard  to  preach 
against  a  thing  which  is  excellent  in  moderation  and  only  mis- 
chievous in  excess. 

Personally  I  am  afraid  that  I  only  look  upon  game's  as  a  pis- 
aller.  I  would  always  rather  take  a  walk  than  play  golf,  and  read 
a  book  than  play  bridge.  Bridge,  indeed,  I  should  regard  as  only 
one  degree  better  than  absolutely  vacuous  conversation,  which 
is  certainly  the  most  fatiguing  thing  in  the  world.  But  the  odd 
thing  is  that  while  it  is  regarded  as  rather  vicious  to  do  nothing,  it 
is  regarded  as  positively  virtuous  to  play  a  game.  Personally  I 


70  ENGLISH  COMPOSITION 

think  competition  always  a  more  or  less  disagreeable  thing.  I 
dislike  it  in  real  life,  and  I  do  not  see  why  it  should  be  introduced 
into  one's  amusements.  If  it  amuses  me  to  do  a  thing,  I  do  not 
very  much  care  whether  I  do  it  better  than  another  person.  I  have 
no  desire  to  be  always  comparing  my  skill  with  the  skill  of  others. 

Then,  too,  I  am  afraid  that  I  must  confess  to  a  lamentably 
feeble  pleasure  in  mere  country  sights  and  sounds.  I  love  to 
watch  the  curious  and  beautiful  things  that  go  on  in  every  hedge- 
row and  every  field ;  it  is  a  ceaseless  delight  to  see  the  tender  un- 
crumpling  leaves  of  the  copse  in  spring,  and  no  less  a  pleasure  to 
see  the  woodland  streaked  and  stained  with  the  flaming  glories  of 
autumn.  It  is  a  joy  in  high  midsummer  to  see  the  clear  dwindled 
stream  run  under  the  thick  hazels,  among  the  rich  water-plants; 
it  is  no  less  a  joy  to  see  the  same  stream  running  full  and  turbid 
in  winter,  when  the  banks  are  bare,  and  the  trees  are  leafless,  and 
the  pasture  is  wrinkled  with  frost.  Half  the  joy,  for  instance,  of 
shooting,  in  which  I  frankly  confess  I  take  a  childish  delight,  is 
the  quiet  tramping  over  the  clean-cut  stubble,  the  distant  view  of 
field  and  wood,  the  long,  quiet  wait  at  the  covert-end,  where  the 
spindle-wood  hangs  out  her  quaint  rosy  berries,  and  the  rabbits 
come  scampering  up  the  copse,  as  the  far-off  tapping  of  the  beaters 
draws  near  in  the  frosty  air.  The  delights  of  the  country-side 
grow  upon  me  every  month  and  every  year.  I  love  to  stroll  in 
the  lanes  in  spring,  with  white  clouds  floating  in  the  blue  above, 
and  to  see  the  glade  carpeted  with  steel-blue  hyacinths.  I  love 
to  walk  on  country  roads  or  by  woodland  paths,  on  a  rain-drenched 
day  of  summer,  when  the  sky  is  full  of  heavy  inky  clouds,  and  the 
earth  smells  fresh  and  sweet;  I  love  to  go  briskly  homeward  on 
a  winter  evening,  when  the  sunset  smolders  low  in  the  west,  when 
the  pheasants  leap  trumpeting  to  their  roosts,  and  the  lights  begin 
to  peep  in  cottage  windows. 

Such  joys  as  these  are  within  the  reach  of  every  one;  and  to 
call  the  country  dull  because  one  has  not  the  opportunity  of 
hitting  and  pursuing  a  little  white  ball  round  and  round  among 
the  same  fields,  with  elaborately  contrived  obstacles  to  test  the  skill 
and  the  temper,  seems  to  me  to  be  grotesque,  if  it  were  not  also  so 
distressing. 

I  cannot  help  feeling  that  games  are  things  that  are  appropriate 


EMPHASIS  IN    THE   WHOLE  COMPOSITION  71 

to  the  restless  days  of  boyhood,  when  one  will  take  infinite  trouble 
and  toil  over  anything  of  the  nature  of  a  make-believe,  so  long  as 
it  is  understood  not  to  be  work ;  but  as  one  gets  older  and  perhaps 
wiser,  a  simpler  and  quieter  range  of  interests  ought  to  take  their 
place.  I  can  humbly  answer  for  it  that  it  need  imply  no  loss  of 
zest;  my  own  power  of  enjoyment  is  far  deeper  and  stronger  than 
it  was  in  early  years ;  the  pleasures  I  have  described,  of  sight  and 
sound,  mean  infinitely  more  to  me  than  the  definite  occupations 
of  boyhood  ever  did.  But  the  danger  is  that  if  we  are  brought 
up  ourselves  to  depend  upon  games,  and  if  we  bring  up  all  our 
boys  to  depend  on  them,  we  are  not  able  to  do  without  them  as 
we  grow  older;  and  thus  we  so  often  have  the  melancholy  spectacle 
of  the  elderly  man,  who  is  hopelessly  bored  with  existence,  and 
who  is  the  terror  of  the  smoking-room  and  the  dinner-table, 
because  he  is  only  capable  of  indulging  in  lengthy  reminiscences 
of  his  own  astonishing  athletic  performances,  and  in  lamentations 
over  the  degeneracy  of  the  human  race. 

Another  remarkable  fact  about  the  conventionality  that  attends 
games  is  that  certain  games  are  dismissed  as  childish  and  con- 
temptible, while  others  are  crowned  with  glory  and  worship. 
One  knows  of  eminent  clergymen  who  play  golf;  and  that  they 
should  do  so  seems  to  constitute  so  high  a  title  to  the  respect  and 
regard  with  which  normal  persons  view  them,  that  one  sometimes 
wonders  whether  they  do  not  take  up  the  practice  with  the  wisdom 
of  the  serpent  that  is  recommended  in  the  gospels,  or  because  of 
the  Pauline  doctrine  of  adaptability,  that  by  all  means  they  may 
save  some. 

But  as  far  as  mere  air  and  exercise  go,  the  childish  game  of 
playing  at  horses  is  admirably  calculated  to  increase  health  and 
vigor  and  needs  no  expensive  resources.  Yet  what  would  be 
said  and  thought  if  a  prelate  and  his  suffragan  ran  nimbly  out  of 
a  palace  gate  in  a  cathedral  close,  with  little  bells  tinkling,  whips 
cracking,  and  reins  of  red  ribbon  drawn  in  to  repress  the  curveting 
of  the  gaitered  steed  ?  There  is  nothing  in  reality  more  undignified 
about  that  than  in  hitting  a  little  ball  about  over  sandy  bunkers. 
If  the  Prime  Minister  and  the  Lord  Chief  Justice  trundled  hoops 
round  and  round  after  breakfast  in  the  graveled  space  behind 
the  Horse  Guards,  who  could  allege  that  they  would  not  be  the 


72  ENGLISH  COMPOSITION 

better  for  the  exercise?  Yet  they  would  be  held  for  some  myste- 
rious reason  to  have  forfeited  respect.  To  the  mind  of  the  philoso- 
pher all  games  are  either  silly  or  reasonable;  and  nothing  so  reveals 
the  stupid  conventionality  of  the  ordinary  mind  as  the  fact  that 
men  consider  a  series  of  handbooks  on  Great  Bowlers  to  be  a 
serious  and  important  addition  to  literature,  while  they  would 
hold  that  a  little  manual  on  Blind-man's  Buff  was  a  fit  subject 
for  derision.  St.  Paul  said  that  when  he  became  a  man  he  put 
away  childish  things.  He  could  hardly  afford  to  say  that  now, 
if  he  hoped  to  be  regarded  as  a  man  of  sense  and  weight. 

I  do  not  wish  to  be  a  mere  Jeremiah  in  the  region  of  prophecy, 
and  to  deplore,  sarcastically  and  incisively,  what  I  cannot  amend. 
What  I  rather  wish  to  do  is  to  make  a  plea  for  greater  simplicity 
in  the  matter,  and  to  try  and  destroy  some  of  the  terrible  priggish- 
ness  in  the  matter  of  athletics  which  appears  to  me  to  prevail. 
After  all,  athletics  are  only  one  form  of  leisurely  amusement;  and 
I  maintain  that  it  is  of  the  essence  of  priggishness  to  import 
solemnity  into  a  matter  which  does  not  need  it,  and  which  would 
be  better  without  it.  Because  the  tyranny  is  a  real  one;  the  man 
of  many  games  is  not  content  with  simply  enjoying  them ;  he  has 
a  sense  of  complacent  superiority,  and  a  hardly  disguised  contempt 
for  the  people  who  do  not  play  them. 

I  was  staying  in  a  house  the  other  day  where  a  distinguished 
philosopher  had  driven  over  to  pay  an  afternoon  call.  The  call 
concluded,  he  wished  to  make  a  start,  so  I  went  down  to  the  stable 
with  him  to  see  about  putting  his  pony  in.  The  stables  were 
deserted.  I  was  forced  to  confess  that  I  knew  nothing  about  the 
harnessing  of  steeds,  however  humble.  We  discovered  portions 
of  what  appeared  to  be  the  equipment  of  a  pony,  and  I  held  them 
for  him,  while  he  gingerly  tried  them  on,  applying  them  cautiously 
to  various  portions  of  the  innocent  animal's  person.  Eventually 
we  had  to  give  it  up  as  a  bad  job,  and  seek  for  professional  as- 
sistance. I  described  the  scene  for  the  benefit  of  a  lively  lady 
of  my  acquaintance,  who  is  a  devotee  of  anything  connected  with 
horses,  and  she  laughed  unmercifully  at  the  description,  and  ex- 
pressed the  contempt  which  she  sincerely  felt  in  no  measured  terms. 
But,  after  all,  it  is  no  part  of  my  business  to  harness  horses;  it 
is  a  convenience  that  there  should  be  persons  who  possess  the 


EMPHASIS  IN   THE   WHOLE  COMPOSITION  73 

requisite  knowledge;  for  me  horses  only  represent  a  convenient 
form  of  locomotion.  I  did  not  mind  her  being  amused  —  indeed, 
that  was  the  object  of  my  narrative  —  but  her  contempt  was  just 
as  much  misplaced  as  if  I  had  despised  her  for  not  being  able  to 
tell  the  difference  between  sapphics  and  alcaics,  which  it  was  my 
business  to  know. 

It  is  the  complacency,  the  self-satisfaction,  that  results  from  the 
worship  of  games,  which  is  one  of  its  most  serious  features.  I 
wish  with  all  my  heart  that  I  could  suggest  a  remedy  for  it;  but 
the  only  thing  that  I  can  do  is  to  pursue  my  own  inclinations,  with 
a  fervent  conviction  that  they  are  at  least  as  innocent  as  the  pursuit 
of  athletic  exercises;  and  I  can  also,  as  I  have  said,  wave  a  little 
flag  of  revolt,  and  rally  to  my  standard  the  quieter  and  more 
simple-minded  persons,  who  love  their  liberty,  and  decline  to  part 
with  it  unless  they  can  find  a  better  reason  than  the  merely  com- 
fortable desire  to  do  what  every  one  else  is  doing. 

Emphasis,  as  you  can  see,  is  very  important,  and  in  theory 
very  simple.  Why  is  it,  then,  that  most  young  writers  violate  it? 
The  answer  can  be  found  in  one  sentence :  They  do  not  plan  out 
their  work  beforehand.  A  boy  sits  down  to  write  and  begins  with 
any  part  of  his  subject  which  happens  to  occur  to  him  first.  He 
writes  a  paragraph  on  this  and  then  a  second  paragraph  on  the 
next  topic  which  happens  to  come  into  his  head.  Naturally  he 
will  remember  the  most  important  points  first,  and  not  think  of 
the  lesser  ones  at  all  until  these  have  been  disposed  of.  As  a  result, 
his  most  important  paragraph,  which  should  have  been  at  the  end, 
will  come  at  or  near  the  beginning;  and  the  end  of  his  theme, 
which  should  have  been  the  climax  of  the  whole,  will  be  made  up 
of  a  series  of  stringy  little  afterthoughts,  each  of  them  crying 
piteously  from  its  page,  "Our  ideas  are  running  out;  haven't 
we  reached  the  four-hundred-word  limit  yet?" 

The  only  cure  for  this  state  of  affairs  is  to  have  the  writer  draw 
up  a  careful  outline  of  his  whole  essay  before  he  pens  a  word. 
He  should  jot  down  all  his  headings,  decide  which  are  the  most 
important,  arrange  these  in  the  important  positions  as  far  as 
possible,  and  estimate  roughly  about  how  many  words  each  one 
is  worth.  Then  he  can  begin  to  write,  and  ought  to  produce  a 
good,  emphatic  theme. 


74 


ENGLISH   COMPOSITION 


Just  a  word  may  be  needed  here  in  regard  to  summaries. 
Elaborate  summaries  at  the  end  are  very  useful  in  long  compo- 
sitions of  three  or  four  thousand  words;  but  in  short  themes  of 
five  hundred  words  or  less  they  are  not  needed  and  should  not  be 
used.  The  whole  value  of  a  summary  lies  in  the  fact  that  it 
refreshes  the  reader's  mind  on  things  which  you  had  told  him  but 
which  he  is  beginning  to  forget.  If  you  have  talked  to  him 
through  four  thousand  words,  he  is  beginning  to  forget  a  good 
deal  and  needs  a  summary  to  remind  him.  If,  on  the  contrary, 
you  have  given  him  only  four  hundred  words,  he  is  certainly  able 
to  remember  that  much  without  help;  and  in  that  case  there  is 
no  more  sense  in  summing  up  for  him  what  he  already  remembers 
than  there  would  be  in  telling  him  his  own  name. 

On  the  other  hand,  although  you  may  not  need  an  elaborate 
summary,  every  theme,  even  a  short  one,  should  have  a  proper 
ending.  You  should  make  your  reader  feel  that  you  are  finishing, 
and  should  not  drop  your  subject  abruptly  in  the  middle  of  your 
last  point  like  a  hot  iron.  A  good  closing  sentence  at  the  end  of 
your  last  point,  referring  back  to  your  whole  theme  in  some  of  its 
words  and  stating  very  briefly  your  final  conclusion,  —  this,  or 
something  like  this,  is  usually  best  for  a  short  composition. 

You  should  also  be  very  careful  not  to  suggest  at  the  end  any 
new  points  which  you  do  not  develop.  For  instance,  in  a  theme 
on  the  advantages  of  a  large  college,  one  man  makes  his  last  para- 
graph a  discussion  of  the  wide  knowledge  of  men  gained  there. 
This,  of  course,  is  correct.  But  in  the  last  sentence  of  this  para- 
graph he  expresses  two  ideas,  both  printed  here  in  italics,  which 
had  not  been  mentioned  before  in  the  whole  theme :  — 

Then,  besides  this  knowledge  of  men,  the  large  colleges  offer  us  better 
libraries  and  finer  laboratories. 

Such  new  ideas  should  never  be  tagged  on  at  the  end  in  a  few 
words  like  this.  If  they  are  important  they  deserve  a  large  para- 
graph each;  if  they  are  not,  they  should  be  put  in  the  middle  of 
the  theme.  As  they  stand  now,  they  make  the  reader  feel  that 
you  have  suggested  something  which  you  have  not  explained; 
consequently  he  cannot  feel  that  your  theme  is  finished.  It 


EMPHASIS   IN    THE   WHOLE  COMPOSITION  75 

sounds  almost  as  if  it  were  "to  be  continued  in  our  next."  A  good 
way  of  ending  the  whole  theme  would  be  to  finish  this  last  para- 
graph about  wider  knowledge  of  men  with  a  sentence  like  the 
following :  — 

In  my  mind,  this  wide  knowledge  of  life,  combined  with  the  other 
advantages  which  I  have  mentioned,  makes  the  large  college  preferable 
to  the  small  one. 

Here  ends  our  chapter  on  Emphasis  and  also  our  discussion 
of  the  composition  as  a  whole.  There  are  many  things  yet  to  be 
said  about  the  details  of  the  paragraph  and  sentence;  but,  for 
the  present,  if  a  man  has  observed  Unity  by  sticking  to  his  sub- 
ject and  showing  his  reader  that  he  is  sticking  to  it;  if  he 
has  obeyed  the  law  of  Coherence  by  having  a  clear  order  and 
pointing  out  his  whereabouts  at  every  turn;  and  if  he  has  made 
his  most  important  paragraphs  emphatic  by  length  or  position,  or 
better  still  by  both,  —  then  he  has  done  his  duty  by  the  theme  as 
a  whole,  and  may  conclude  as  one  of  my  brightest  men  once  con- 
cluded :  — 

"Ye  end,  praise  ye  Lord!" 


CHAPTER  V 

THE   PARAGRAPH 

THERE  are  two  kinds  of  paragraphs:  one  is  a  subdivision  of 
the  whole  composition  ;  the  other  incloses  an  idea  which  is 
whole  and  complete  in  itself,  and  which  does  not  need  to  be  linked 
to  other  ideas  in  order  to  serve  a  useful  purpose.  But  there  is  no 
real  difference  of  internal  structure  between  the  two,  and  the 
writer  who  learns  how  to  develop  fitly  an  independent  paragraph 
needs  only  to  understand  the  use  of  transitional  sentences  in  order 
to  make  such  a  paragraph  dependent  upon  others,  and  part  of  a 
composition. 

In  some  measure  because  of  this  double  usefulness,  but  in 
greater  measure  because  it  consists  of  a  single  thought  developed 
as  far  as  need  be,  the  paragraph  isthe  most  important  unit  of 
writing.  We  think  very  largely  by  topics, —  that  is,  by  undeveloped" 
paragraphs,  or  at  least  we  should  think  in  that  fashion ;  and,  when 
we  come  to  write,  the  paragraph  is  our  unit  of  composition  much 
as  the  dollar  in  this  country  is  our  unit  in  finance.  The  dollar 
may  be  divided  into  cents  or  compounded  with  other  dollars  into 
eagles  or  double  eagles;  the  paragraph  may  be  divided  into  sen- 
tences or  compounded  with  other  paragraphs  into  essays  or  argu- 
ments, but  each  keeps  its  identity  as  a  unit  nevertheless. 

The  paragraph  is  a  unit  because  it  consists  of  a  single  thought 
developed  as  far  as  need  be  for  complete  clearness.  To  be  a 
paragraph -thought  the  topic  we  are  preparing  to  write  on  must 
be  single,  for  otherwise  it  will  split  into  subdivisions,  each  of  which 
must  be  developed  separately,  and  so  reveal  itself  as  a  composition- 
thought.  Again,  it  must  be  susceptible  of  development,  for  if  not 
we  have  only  a  sentence-thought,  which  is  expressed  as  fully  as 
need  be  in  a  sentence.  "  An  ambitious  boy  should  go  to  college," 
is  a  composition-thought.  How  could  this  proposition  be  developed, 
76 


THE   PARAGRAPH 


77 


except  by  a  series  of  topics  each  one  of  which  would  require  a 
paragraph?  "If  you  do  not  hurry  you  will  miss  the  train,"  is 
a  sentence-thought.  It  would  be  difficult  to  expend  effectively 
more  words  upon  it.  "Abraham  Lincoln  was  a  master  of  clear 
exposition,"  is  a  paragraph-thought.  It  might  conceivably  be 
expanded  into  several  topics.  It  conveys  some  meaning  as  it 
stands;  but  it  could  be  made  to  give  over  its  thought  most  effi- 
ciently within  the  bounds  of  a  fully  developed  paragraph.  The 
dollar  is  denned  by  a  certain  weight  of  silver  which  it  always 
contains.  The  paragraph  is  denned  by  the  thought  which  it 
expresses,  a  thought  neither  too  small  for  expansion,  nor  too  large 
to  be  handled  without  a  further  subdivision. 

When  it  comes  to  the  actual  writing  of  the  paragraph,  the  first 
problem,  naturally,  is  how  best  to  develop  the  topic  which  is,  in 
undeveloped  form,  your  paragraph-thought.  The  process  ranges 
all  the  way  from  very  difficult  to  very  easy ;  but  the  explanation 
of  the  process  must  necessarily  be  a  little  complicated,  for  it  must 
cover  all  varieties  of  possible  development  in  order  to  be  valuable. 
There  are  two  successive  steps  in  this  discussion  of  how  to 
expand  one's  topic :  the  first  simple,  the  second  complex. 

1.  Your  thought  must  be  clear  and  distinct,  and  that  means, 
usually,  that  it  must  be  put  into  a  sentence.     For  example,  if  the 
thought  to  be  developed  concerns  the  honor  system  in  college 
examinations,  it  might  be  phrased  as  follows:    "The  best  honor 
system  depends  upon  the  honor  of  the  individual."     This  sentence 
makes  the  thought  concrete ;  crystallizes  it  so  that  one  can  think 
clearly  about  it.     But  though  the  topic  as  so  phrased  can  be  under- 
stood, it  can  by  no  means  be  completely   comprehended;    the 
thought  must  be  developed.     It  must  be  made  to  bring  forth  its 
full  meaning;  it  must  be  expanded  until  its  significance  is  entirely 
revealed.     This  is  the  next  step,  unless,  indeed,  this  topic  is  but 
one  of  a  series,  which,  in  completed  form,  will  constitute  the  skeleton, 
as  it  were,  of  an  argument  or  a  lengthy  exposition.     Then  one 
would  proceed  with  the  formation  of  topic-sentences  until  a  com- 
plete paragraph  outline  results,  each  item  of  which  is  the  nucleus 
of  a  future  paragraph. 

2.  Let  us  suppose  that  the  topic  is  to  be  linked  to  no  other, 
and  so  proceed  immediately  to  the  task  of  development.     How 


yg  ENGLISH  COMPOSITION 

this  is  to  be  done  will  depend  upon  a  number  of  variable  factors, 
such  as  the  opinions  of  the  writer,  his  information,  or  his  purpose 
in  writing  the  paragraph.  No  two  men  would  develop  a  topic  by 
precisely  the  same  materials.  But  all  men  would  have  to  choose 
between  a  limited  number  of  methods  of  development.  The  sim- 
plest, if  we  choose  the  topic-sentence  given  in  the  last  paragraph, 
might  result  somewhat  as  follows :  — 

The  best  honor  system  depends  upon  the  honor  of  the  individual. 
The  man  who  has  promised  not  to  cheat  will  feel  that  he  has  been 
forced  into  doing  right.  If  he  breaks  his  word,  detection  must  rest 
with  his  classmates,  who  do  not  desire  to  perform  police  service;  and 
if  he  is  not  detected,  the  efficiency  of  the  examination  will  suffer.  On 
the  other  hand,  if  the  instructor  depends  upon  the  unpledged  honor  of 
his  classes,  he  will  seldom  be  disappointed.  Furthermore,  if  there  are 
dishonorable  men  in  the  examination,  he  retains  the  power  to  punish 
them. 

In  this  simple  form  of  paragraph  the  subject  is  stated  in  the  first 
sentence,  then  details  are  added  which  enlarge  upon  it  and  make 
plain  its  meaning. 

For  many  purposes  this  would  be  sufficient.  But  suppose  the 
author  should  be  writing  for  some  one  who  did  not  understand  the 
phrase  "honor  system"  as  we  use  it  in  our  colleges.  In  such  a 
case,  an  explanatory  sentence  would  have  to  be  added  after  the 
topic  has  been  stated.  And  suppose  this  reader  should  wish  to 
know  how  the  writer  would  apply  his  theories  about  college  ex- 
aminations. Then,  evidently,  some  sentence  which  would  make 
use  of  the  sentiments  expressed  in  the  paragraph  should  con- 
clude it.  With  these  alterations  the  paragraph  might  read  in 
this  manner :  — 

The  best  honor  system  depends  upon  the  honor  of  the  individual. 
I  mean  by  honor  system  any  method  which  will  induce  the  undergrad- 
uate to  look  upon  dishonesty  in  the  class  room  as  he  looks  upon  dis- 
honesty in  life.  The  man  who  has  promised  not  to  cheat  will  feel 
that  he  has  been  forced  into  doing  right.  If  he  breaks  his  word, 
detection  must  rest  with  his  classmates,  who  do  not  desire  to  perform 
police  service;  and  if  he  is  not  detected,  the  efficiency  of  the  exami- 
nation will  suffer.  On  the  other  hand,  if  the  instructor  depends  upon 
the  unpledged  honor  of  his  classes,  he  will  seldom  be  disappointed. 


THE  PARAGRAPH  79 

Furthermore,  if  there  are  dishonorable  men  in  his  examination,  he  re- 
tains the  power  to  punish  them.  Personally,  I  believe  that  the  present 
system,  whereby  one  promises  to  be  honest,  should  be  given  up. 

It  is  possible  to  plot  this  paragraph  somewhat  as  follows :  — 

1.  The  subject  stated  (ist  sentence). 

2.  The   subject    defined    by   means    of    an    explanation   (2d 
sentence). 

3.  The  subject  established  by  details  (3d,  4th,   5th,  and  6th 
sentences). 

4.  The  subject  applied  by  enforcing  it :  that  is,  by  bringing  home 
the  general  statement,  an  enforced  honor  system  is  bad,  to  a 
particular  instance,  the  present  system  (yth  sentence). 

But  these  are  only  a  few  of  the  many  ways  in  which  this  topic 
can  be  developed  under  the  pressure  of  various  purposes.  For 
example,  suppose  argument  were  necessary  in  order  to  prove  that 
the  honor  of  the  individual  was  most  active  when  most  free.  If 
this  should  be  the  case,  logical  proof  would  have  to  be  put  into  the 
paragraph,  and  this  proof  might  be  either  added  to  the  details 
already  given,  or  substituted  for  them.  One  might  add  after 
sentence  four  in  the  paragraph  just  above:  "No  student  can  give 
his  examination  paper  the  attention  it  requires  and  at  the  same 
time  watch  his  neighbor.  Therefore,  if  his  neighbor  happens 
to  be  slippery,  and  wishes  to  use  a  crib,  he  can  do  so  successfully, 
with  this  result,  that  the  examination  is  no  longer  a  fair  one  for 
the  men  who  must  depend  upon  legitimate  sources  of  information 
in  order  to  pass."  Or  again,  the  writer  of  the  paragraph  may  not 
wish  to  enforce  the  general  principle  it  explains.  He  may  not 
wish  to  apply  it,  in  this  way,  to  his  own  college.  Delicacy  may 
suggest  that  it  would  be  well  to  let  his  readers  draw  their  own 
conclusions,  in  which  case  he  will  merely  state  the  result  of  the 
establishment  of  his  topic:  "No  artificial  honor  system  can 
succeed."  It  would  be  difficult  to  illustrate  all  the  possible  ways 
of  developing  a  paragraph  topic  by  means  of  this  one  example, 
because  some  of  these  methods  would  be  valueless  here,  and  others 
would  be  superfluous.  We  must  take  fresh  examples,  this  time 
in  the  form  of  whole  paragraphs  where  the  topic  has  been 
developed  as  in  each  case  its  nature  and  the  purpose  of  the  author 


go  ENGLISH  COMPOSITION 

required.  But  first,  in  order  to  understand  these  various  methods 
of  development,  consider  carefully  this  scheme,  which  is  an  attempt 
to  cover  all  possible  means  of  expanding  a  topic-sentence  into 
a  paragraph.  It  is  borrowed,  with  some  changes  in  phrasing,  from 
the  Practical  Rhetoric  of  Professor  Genung. 

1.  The  subject  proposed  (stated  in  a  topic-sentence  usually). 

2.  Whatever  is  needed  to  explain  the  subject. 

(a)  Definition   (limitation,   restriction,   or  enlargement). 

(b)  Repetition. 

(c)  Presenting  the  contrary. 

3.  Whatever  is  needed  to  establish  the  subject. 

(a)  Elaboration  by  examples  or  details. 

(b)  Illustration  by  comparison. 

(c)  Logical  proof. 

4.  Whatever  is  needed  to  apply  the  subject.  • 

(a)  Result  or  consequence. 

(b)  Enforcement.  » 

(c)  Summary  or  recapitulation. 

This  outline  is  valuable  much  as  a  number  of  mathematical 
formulas  might  be  valuable  in  working  out  an  engineering  problem. 
Like  them,  it  may  serve  to  show  all  the  possible  resources,  in  order 
that  the  most  efficient  may  be  employed.  In  practice,  an  engineer 
of  experience  would  seldom  have  to  consider  more  than  one  or 
two  methods,  the  others  remaining,  as  it  were,  dormant  in  his  mind. 
In  practice,  too,  an  experienced  writer  would  instinctively  choose 
the  best  method  for  developing  his  paragraph,  but  one  must  know 
them  all  in  order  to  make  that  choice. 

In  the  paragraph  developed  above,  the  commonest  resources  of 
the  writer  were  exemplified.  Some  explanation  is  necessary  in 
order  to  make  the  others  clear.  The  numbering  of  the  following 
paragraphs  corresponds  with  that  of  the  scheme  of  development 
just  given. 

1.  (The  subject  proposed.)     The  various  means  and  places 
for  stating  the  subject  of  the  paragraph  will  be  discussed  later. 
It  is  usually  embodied  in  the  first  sentence. 

2.  (Whatever  is  needed  to  explain  the  subject.)     It  is  not  always 
necessary  to  explain  the  subject,  therefore  2  is  often  omitted. 
An  instance  where  definition  (2  a)  was  required  has  been  given  in 


THE   PARAGRAPH  8 1 

the  paragraph  on  the  honor  system.  Repetition  (2  b)  is  sometimes 
advisable  in  order  that  the  full  force  of  the  topic-sentence  shall  be 
certain  to  reach  the  reader.  "The  college  world  is  like  the  world 
outside.  Life  without  the  campus  gates  is  reflected  by  life  within 
them."  This  paragraph  opening  does  not  move  ahead;  the 
second  sentence  merely  repeats  and  makes  clearer  the  thought 
of  the  first.  It  would  also  have  been  possible  to  explain  this 
thought  by  the  third  method,  presenting  the  contrary  (2  c) :  "The 
college  world  is  like  the  world  outside.  Life  in  the  college  is  in 
no  fundamental  particular  different  from  life  in  the  town."  This 
last  means  is  not  commonly  employed.  Again  there  is  no  moving 
ahead,  but  merely  a  greater  emphasizing  of  the  subject  by  stating 
what  is  not  true  about  it. 

3.  (Whatever  is  needed  to  establish  the  subject.)  Your  para- 
graph remains  a  statement  until  it  is  established,  and  so  this 
division  of  paragraph  development  is  the  most  important  of  all. 
In  nine  cases  out  8f  ten  you  will  wish  to  elaborate  the  subject  in 
the  form  of  an  exposition.  To  do  this  you  may  give  specific 
instances  (3  a),  as,  for  example,  in  the  following:  "Sometimes 
examinations  are  valueless  as  a  test  of  ability.  Last  year  Smith 
failed  in  mathematics  because  he  had  a  headache.  This  winter 
Jones  passed  his  English  by  sheer  luck,"  etc.  Or  you  may  add 
the  details  which  may  serve  to  make  clear  your  topic  (3  a) :  "An 
Oriental  rug  owes  its  beauty,  in  part,  to  an  irregularity  in  figure 
combined  with  a  harmony  of  pattern.  A  diamond  at  one  end  will 
balance  a  star  at  the  other.  Two  medallions  of  different  design 
will  occupy  corresponding  positions  in  the  field,"  etc. 

Often  you  may  apply  a  different  and  a  very  effective  method, 
for  you  may  help  to  establish  and  make  clear  your  topic  by  an 
illustration  drawn  from  another  field.  This  will  differ  from  ex- 
emplification for  it  will  be  not  a  specific  instance  of  the  case  in  hand, 
as  in  the  part-paragraph  about  examinations  above,  but  a  parallel 
development  borrowed  for  the  occasion:  "  A  steam  engine  works  by 
means  of  the  pressure  of  steam  upon  its  piston.  It  is  like  a  pump 
reversed."  Or,  "Municipal  government  will  improve  only  when 
the  best  men  enter  politics.  It  takes  skilled  labor  to  produce  a 
good  machine."  The  figure  of  speech  called  a  simile  is  often  to 
be  used  for  illustration  by  comparison,  with  good  effect. 


g2  EXCLISH  COMPOSITION 

Finally,  if  the  paragraph  is  argumentative,  logical  proof  (3  c) 
is  frequently  to  be  added  to,  or  substituted  for,  exposition.  Of 
this  an  example  has  been  given  in  the  paragraph  on  the  honor 
system ;  but  for  further  explanation  of  what  constitutes  proof  the 
reader  should  consult  the  chapters  upon  argument. 

4.  (Whatever  is  needed  to  apply  the  subject.)  Some  paragraphs 
need  no  conclusion.  Others  lose  their  force  if  they  are  ended 
as  soon  as  the  proposition  has  been  established.  Suppose  some 
application  needs  to  be  made  in  order  to  get  the  best  development 
of  your  thought.  Usually  it  will  be  no  more  than  some  obvious 
result  (4  a)  which  needs  to  be  phrased  in  order  to  round  off  the 
paragraph.  You  have  been  writing  of  the  inefficiency  of  examina- 
tions as  above.  The  result  of  it  all  is  that:  "The  teacher  who 
relies  too  much  upon  examinations  makes  a  great  mistake," 
and  with  that  sentence  you  conclude  your  paragraph.  Or,  more 
rarely,  you  have  been  discussing  some  general  principle,  such  as 
the  one  which  in  your  judgment  should  govern  the  choice  of  a  dog, 
and  wish  to  enforce  (46)  your  conclusion:  "The  man  who  buys 
a  cocker  spaniel  because  the  legs  are  short  and  the  nose  is  square, 
regardless  of  the  dog's  temperament,  may  purchase  a  show  dog, 
but  he  will  seldom  get  a  companion."  In  this  case  you  had  estab- 
lished the  principle,  and,  in  this  sentence,  you  put  it  to  words, 
apply  it  to  a  concrete  instance,  that  is,  enforce  it.  Another  in- 
stance of  enforcement  is  to  be  found  above  in  the  paragraph  on 
the  honor  system.  Finally,  a  paragraph  may  be  so  complicated 
or  so  long  that  it  may  need  at  the  end  a  recapitulation  of  its 
important  points  in  order  that  the  reader  may  gather  them  all 
into  his  mind.  It  is  not  necessary  to  give  an  example  of  a  sum- 
mary. It  should  not  be  necessary  to  add  that  in  a  paragraph 
it  should  always  be  short. 

All  this  is  much  simpler  in  the  explanation  and  examples  given 
above  than  in  actual  practice.  For,  in  the  first  place,  the  para- 
graph is  a  very  flexible  instrument ;  and,  in  using  it  for  all  the  varied 
purposes  of  communication  by  writing,  men  combine  and  re- 
combine  its  various  methods  of  development  in  every  imaginable 
fashion.  The  order  of  our  scheme  is  often  and  rightly  departed 
from,  definition  following  establishment,  or  statement  of  topic 
succeeding  proof.  Again,  the  relation  of  a  paragraph  to  other 


THE  PARAGRAPH  83 

paragraphs  in  the  exposition  of  which  it  is  a  part  may  often  affect 
its  development,  since  one  portion  of  that  development  may  be 
taken  from  its  normal  position,  and  placed  elsewhere,  in  order  to 
show  more  clearly  a  connection  with  what  has  gone  before,  or 
is  to  follow  after.  Finally,  the  paragraph  is  not  only  the  most 
important  unit  of  composition;  it  is  usually  the  last  to  be  com- 
pletely mastered.  Consequently,  you  will  find  many  paragraphs 
which  are  confused  in  their  development,  or,  still  more  commonly, 
are  not  developed  in  the  best  possible  manner.  The  purpose  of 
this  chapter  is  in  no  sense  to  impose  a  rigid  and  artificial  paragraph 
structure  upon  the  writer ;  it  is  rather  to  explain  to  him  the  nature 
of  the  available  means  for  building  up  a  paragraph ;  so  that  by 
experiment,  and  by  the  study  of  models,  he  can  learn  to  give  to 
each  thought  which  he  wishes  to  develop  the  treatment  that  it 
deserves. 

But  before  we  leave  the  subject  of  paragraph  development 
consider  two  specimens  of  good  paragraphs  taken  from  standard 
writing,  and  observe  the  results  of  an  analysis  of  their  structure. 
The  first,  which  is  from  Macaulay,  is,  like  most  of  his  paragraphs, 
very  regular  in  form. 

We  would  speak  first  of  the  Puritans,  the  most  remarkable  body 
of  men,  perhaps,  which  the  world  has  ever  produced.  The  odious 
and  ridiculous  parts  of  their  character  lie  on  the  surface.  He  that 
runs  may  read  them;  nor  have  there  been  wanting  attentive  and 
malicious  observers  to  point  them  out.  For  many  years  after  the 
Restoration,  they  were  the  theme  of  unmeasured  invective  and 
derision.  They  were  exposed  to  the  utmost  licentiousness  of  the 
press  and  of  "the  stage,  at  the  time  when  the  press  and  the  stage 
were  most  licentious.  They  were  not  men  of  letters ;  they  were, 
as  a  body,  unpopular ;  they  could  not  defend  themselves ;  and  the 
public  would  not  take  them  under  its  protection.  They  were 
therefore  abandoned,  without  reserve,  to  the  tender  mercies  of  the 
satirists  and  dramatists.  The  ostentatious  simplicity  of  their 
dress,  their  sour  aspect,  their  nasal  twang,  their  stiff  posture, 
their  long  graces,  their  Hebrew  names,  the  Scriptural  phrases 
which  they  introduced  on  every  occasion,  their  contempt  of  human 
learning,  their  detestation  of  polite  amusements,  were  indeed  fair 


g4  EXGLISH   COMPOSITION 

game  for  the  laughers.  But  it  is  not  from  the  laughers  alone  that 
the  philosophy  of  history  is  to  be  learnt.  And  he  who  approaches 
this  subject  should  carefully  guard  against  the  influence  of  that 
potent  ridicule,  which  has  already  misled  so  many  excellent  writers. 

Plotted,  the  development  here  is  easily  seen  to  be  i,  3  a,  4  a :  that 
is,  the  subject  stated  in  a  topic-sentence;  the  details  which  serve 
to  elaborate  it  added ;  and  some  application  made  by  means  of 
a  result  which  follows  from  the  circumstances  given  in  the  body  of 
the  paragraph.  The  first  sentence  states  the  topic;  the  2d,  3d, 
4th,  5th,  6th,  7th,  and  8th  establish  it  by  details;  and  the  gth  and 
loth  give  the  result. 

But  this  is  a  very  regular  paragraph.  Macaulay  often  varies  the 
order  of  his  development.  He  sometimes  begins  with  a  topic- 
sentence  which  refers  back  and  has  no  place  in  the  thought  structure 
of  the  paragraph  which  it  opens,  although  this  practice  is  much 
more  common  in  less  monotonously  regular  writers.  An  example 
is  the  following:  "An  ill-natured  man  Boswell  certainly  was  not. 
Yet  the  malignity  of  the  most  malignant  satirist  could  scarcely 
cut  deeper  than  his  thoughtless  loquacity."  Here  the  first  sentence 
is  merely  transitional,  the  second  contains  the  topic.  But  let  us 
choose  an  example  of  paragraph  flexibility  from  a  less  formal 
writer.  Here  is  an  instance  from  A.  C.  Benson:  — 

I  wish  very  much  that  there  was  a  really  good  literary  paper, 
with  an  editor  of  catholic  tastes,  and  half-a-dozen  stimulating 
specialists  on  the  staff,  whose  duty  would  be  to  read  the  books 
that  came  out,  each  in  his  own  line,  write  reviews  of  appreciation 
and  not  of  contemptuous  fault-finding,  let  feeble  books  alone,  and 
make  it  their  business  to  tell  ordinary  people  what  to  read,  not 
saving  them  the  trouble  of  reading  the  books  that  are  worth  read- 
ing, but  sparing  them  the  task  of  glancing  at  a  good  many  books 
that  are  not  worth  reading.  Literary  papers,  as  a  rule,  either 
review  a  book  with  hopeless  rapidity,  or  tend  to  lag  behind  too 
much.  It  would  be  of  the  essence  of  such  a  paper  as  I  have 
described,  that  there  should  be  no  delay  about  telling  one  what  to 
look  out  for,  and  at  the  same  time  that  the  reviews  should  be 
deliberate  and  careful. 


THE   PARAGRAPH  85 

This  paragraph  is  informal,  it  is  not  carefully  constructed; 
and  yet  it  reads  well,  and  gives  the  conversational  effect  which 
the  writer  desired.  In  truth,  paragraph  structure  cannot  be  dealt 
with  as  you  would  deal  with  mathematical  formulas.  The  topic 
of  this  paragraph  is,  roughly:  "There  should  be  a  good  literary 
paper."  The  rest  of  the  material  gives  details  in  support  of  this 
contention  and  particulars  which  elaborate  Mr.  Benson's  conception 
of  what  a  good  literary  paper  should  be.  It  would  be  easy  to 
rewrite  the  paragraph  with  a  short  topic-sentence  containing  the 
paragraph-thought,  and  a  series  of  following  sentences  developing 
this  thought  by  the  methods  which  we  have  called  elaboration  by 
examples  or  details.  We  could  thus  make  the  form  exhibit  more 
clearly  the  thought  development,  i,  3  a,  which  underlies  the  original. 
Would  the  paragraph  be  improved  ?  If  one  desired  a  plain  state- 
ment of  the  crude  facts,  yes.  But  Mr.  Benson  desired  a  pleasing 
statement,  one  which,  by  means  of  its  informality,  would  be  more 
effective  than  a  crude  blurting  out  of  the  truth  about  literary  papers. 
For  his  purposes,  the  free  and  easy  paragraph  was  better;  for 
Macaulay's,  the  sharply  denned  thought  development  was  better. 
A  logical  development  of  thought  underlay  both  paragraphs  —  had 
to  underlie  them,  for  otherwise  neither  the  formal  nor  the  informal 
specimen  would  have  been  effective ;  but  the  manner  of  using  this 
structure  varied  with  the  purpose  of  the  writer.  You  will  have 
abundant  opportunities  to  test  these  truths  for  yourself.  Many 
paragraphs,  when  you  try  to  analyze  them,  will  seem  to  be  utterly 
irregular  in  their  structure.  Oftentimes  this  will  be  because  they 
are  slap-dash  and  ineffective;  oftentimes  because  the  writer  is 
sure  of  his  thought  development  and  does  not  need  to  make  the 
structure  of  his  paragraph  regular  in  order  that  his  reader  should 
be  sure  of  it  also.  Yet  you  should  carefully  heed  one  item  of 
advice.  You  must  be  sure  of  the  soundness  of  your  thought 
structure  before  you  can  seem  to  disregard  it  in  the  interest  of 
variety  and  freedom.  To  be  utterly  free  is  to  have  no  freedom  at 
all,  as  historians  have  long  taught.  Learn  to  write  with  the 
obvious  clarity  of  Macaulay  before  you  pull  up  anchor  and  seem, 
only  seem,  to  free  yourself  from  the  restraint  of  careful  and  logical 
thought.  The  soldier  must  learn  the  drill  code  with  scrupulous 
accuracy  before  he  can  move  without  confusion  in  free  formation. 


86  ENGLISH   COMPOSITION 

The  orator  must  know  exactly  the  points  he  wishes  to  bring  out, 
before  he  dares  speak  with  apparent  informality.  In  all  intellectual 
work,  successful  ease  and  freedom  come  after,  not  before,  a 
rigorous  mental  discipline.  Therefore,  begin  with  paragraphs 
whose  logical  development  is  obvious  because  they  follow  the 
most  logical  development,  topic  stated,  topic  defined,  topic  es- 
tablished, topic  applied,  even  if  they  do  not  employ  all  of  these 
stages.  Wait  for  a  freer  arrangement  until  you  are  sure  that  you 
can  control  it. 

A  number  of  paragraphs  quoted  from  works  of  various  natures 
follow.1  They  illustrate  all  these  various  methods  of  paragraph 
development,  though,  naturally,  no  one  specimen  exemplifies 
every  method.  Each  paragraph  should  be  analyzed  for  its  thought 
structure,  for  in  no  other  way  can  the  student  learn  how  natural, 
how  effective,  and  how  infinitely  flexible  is  the  system  which  the 
mind  of  man  has  worked  out  in  order  to  expand  in  every  valuable 
way  his  nucleus  of  thought.  To  repeat,  the  strictly  logical  methods 
which  all  good  paragraphs  follow  bind  no  one,  though  in  learning 
them  a  novice  is  sure  to  feel  awkward  and  constrained.  It  is 
much  as  with  skating:  we  can  all  slide  over  the  ice,  as  we  can 
all  get  through  some  rough  and  inefficient  form  of  paragraph; 
but  to  skate  we  must  first  submit  to  what  seems  an  unnatural  and 
wholly  artificial  movement  of  the  body  and  limbs.  In  paragraph 
writing  first  learn  what  can  be  done ;  then  see  how  it  is  done ;  next 
practice  the  simpler  forms ;  then  experiment  with  the  more  com- 
plex, taking  care  not  to  be  discouraged  because  your  results  are 
stiff  and  awkward.  Finally,  you  may  hope  to  master  your  in- 
strument and  return  to  a  more  natural  form  of  writing  with  double 
or  triple  the  power  for  clear  and  forcible  expression. 

Until  you  can  develop  a  paragraph  topic  effectively,  it  is  useless 
to  consider  any  other  problem  of  the  paragraph  except  those  re- 
garding its  nature  as  a  unit  of  expression.  But  this  important 
process  well  on  the  way  towards  mastery,  a  final  consideration 
in  paragraph  structure  should  come  up  for  discussion.  The  whole 
paragraph  is  merely  a  development  of  a  single  thought  or  topic. 
In  the  simplest,  in  the  commonest,  form  of  paragraph  this  topic  is 
put  in  a  sentence  at  the  beginning  of  the  paragraph.  It  is  placed 
1  Pages  90-110. 


THE  PARAGRAPH  87 

there  as  the  expression  (x+y)*  is  placed  at  the  head  of  an  algebraic 
operation  of  which  the  completion  is  the  expanded  form.  The 
advantages  of  this  method  are  obvious.  You  name  your  paragraph, 
as  it  were;  you  give  it  a  title  which  indicates  the  service  it  is  to 
perform  in  your  article;  you  state  at  the  beginning  what  it  is 
which  you  intend  to  do.  This  is  Type  I,  and  it  is  Type  I  which 
should  be  used  until  the  writer  feels  that  topic  development  is  his 
servant  and  not  his  master. 

Type  II,  with  topic-sentence  at  both  beginning  and  end,  is  com- 
paratively unimportant.  It  is  merely  a  modification  of  Type  I, 
to  be  used  in  certain  particular  instances  when  especial  emphasis 
of  the  topic  is  desired.  For  such  a  purpose,  one  need  not  rest  with 
a  clear  statement  at  the  beginning  of  the  paragraph.  One  can 
reiterate  the  same  statement  at  the  end  in  words  substantially 
identical,  and  thus  make  certain  that  the  sleepiest  reader  or  the 
most  inattentive  hearer  has  caught  the  gist  of  one's  thought.  You 
begin:  "Foreign  trade  requires  a  strong  navy,"  and  you  may  end 
with  a  summary  (4^) :  "A  strong  navy  is  indispensable  for  a  good 
foreign  trade." 

Type  III,  with  the  topic -sentence  at  the  end,  is  very  important, 
but  it  is  by  no  means  common.  Sometimes  your  topic  would  be 
unintelligible  if  stated  before  its  explanation.  "The  ion  may 
displace  the  molecule  in  chemical  formulas,"  to  one  who  knew 
only  the  old-fashioned  chemistry  would  be  unintelligible  until 
the  nature  of  the  ion  had  been  explained.  Evidently,  in  a  para- 
graph with  this  as  a  topic,  a  certain  amount  of  exposition  would 
have  to  precede  the  topic -sentence.  Or  again,  an  argument  might 
be  in  question  in  which  the  conclusion  could  not  be  safely  stated 
until  convincing  proofs  had  been  adduced.  Or,  in  subjects  not 
properly  argumentative,  it  may  be  desirable  to  keep  the  point 
until  the  last.  In  all  of  these  contingencies  the  end  and  not  the 
beginning  of  the  paragraph  is  the  place  for  the  topic-sentence, 
and  thus  for  i,  the  statement  of  the  topic,  and  it  is  this  arrangement 
which  makes  Type  III.  Type  III  should  not  be  used  unless  there 
is  good  reason.  It  is  seldom  so  clear,  at  least  in  simple  exposition, 
as  Type  I,  but  in  the  proper  place  it  is  invaluable. 

Finally  we  come  to  Type  IV.  Sometimes  it  is  impossible  to 
put  the  subject  of  the  paragraph  into  a  single  sentence.  If  this 


gg  ENGLISH  COMPOSITION 

seems  to  be  the  case  in  an  expository  paragraph,  suspect  a  haziness 
of  thought  or  a  lack  of  unity  which  should  be  corrected.  It  is 
seldom  that  the  average  writer  will  need  to  express  a  thought  so 
subtle  or  so  delicate  that  it  cannot  be  crystallized  into  a  sentence 
and  must  be  implied  by  means  of  a  whole  paragraph.  But  in 
narrative  and  description  the  matter  is  quite  otherwise.  There, 
the  paragraph  structure  is  a  very  loose  one,  which  can  seldom 
be  plotted  according  to  the  scheme  given  above.  The  develop- 
ment, at  best,  is  by  a  chronological  association  of  incidents,  or  by 
an  assemblage  of  details  held  together  by  their  services  in  building 
up  a  general  impression.  It  is  nearly  always  impossible,  in  such 
cases,  to  put  the  subject  of  the  paragraph  into  a  single  sentence, 
because  this  subject  is  not  a  topic  to  be  expanded  so  much  as  an 
effect  or  result  of  the  whole.  The  narrative  and  descriptive 
paragraph  must  have  unity,  of  course;  but  this  unity  is  of  con- 
ception, and  must  be  implied  by  a  unity  of  effect ;  it  can  seldom  be 
expressed  in  a  single  sentence.  When  the  thought  of  a  paragraph 
can  be  implied  better  than  it  can  be  stated,  then  and  at  no  other 
time  should  one  use  the  paragraph  without  a  topic-sentence  which 
is  called  Type  IV. 

It  should  be  clear  by  now  that  it  was  impracticable  at  the  begin- 
ning of  this  discussion  to  take  up  the  paragraph  according  to  the 
usual  subdivisions  of  Unity,  Coherence,  and  Emphasis ;  for  the  chief 
problem,  and  the  first  one  to  be  considered,  is  to  develop  properly 
the  topic.  Yet,  of  course,  Unity,  Coherence,  and  Emphasis  apply 
here  as  in  all  problems  of  thought,  the  difference  being  merely 
that  their  application  is  along  lines  which  differ  from  those  which 
we  have  followed  in  our  discussion  of  the  whole  composition. 

If  the  paragraph  can  be  summed  up  in  a  single  sentence,  of  which 
it  is  a  true  development,  it  has  unity.  The  living  cell  splits  at 
certain  periods  of  its  growth  into  two.  So  with  a  paragraph.  If 
the  thought  shows  signs  of  division,  shows  that  it  is  not  a  single 
paragraph-thought,  split  it ;  make  two  paragraphs  instead  of  one, 
and  so  be  assured  of  unity.  Conversely,  two  paragraphs  may 
show  signs  of  affinity,  may  conveniently  blend,  and,  like  two  drops 
of  mercury,  join  into  one.  This  means  that  your  ptfragraph- 
thought  was  split,  that  it  was  only  a  half -thought.  Blend  it  with 
another,  and  so  assure  a  complete  unity. 


THE  PARAGRAPH  89 

For  example,  suppose  the  paragraph  on  the  honor  system  had 
been  merged  with  a  discussion  of  the  effect  upon  the  faculty  of 
a  defective  honor  system.  The  cell  would  have  grown  too  large. 
It  would  split,  if  the  writer  knew  his  business,  and  the  new  material 
be  added  as  a  new  paragraph.  Or  suppose  the  remarks  upon  the 
police  service  required  of  the  student  body  and  the  results  if  they 
failed  to  perform  it  had  been  put  into  separate  paragraphs.  The 
two  half  topics  would  show  affinity.  Unless  the  writer  had  a  great 
deal  to  say  about  each,  they  should  draw  together  and  be  combined. 

As  for  Coherence,  if  the  paragraph  is  properly  developed  it  will 
be  coherent;  but,  just  as  with  the  whole  composition,  this  coher- 
ence must  be  shown.  There  must  be  guideposts  even  within 
the  paragraph.  In  the  whole  composition,  transitional  sentences 
and  transitional  paragraphs  performed  this  service.  Within  the 
paragraph,  it  is  the  word  and  the  phrase  upon  which  we  must  de- 
pend. The  invaluable  " however,"  " but,"  "also,"  " nevertheless," 
"furthermore,"  "finally,"  the  no  less  useful  "of  course,"  "on 
the  contrary,"  "but  to  repeat,"  "on  the  other  hand,"  "to  return," 
are  the  signs  which  point  the  way  through  the  thought  develop- 
ment of  the  paragraph.  In  order  to  make  clear  the  coherence 
of  this  development,  they  must  be  used  freely ;  in  order  to  avoid 
monotony  they  must  be  incessantly  varied.  One  should  have 
a  bagful  always  ready  to  be  drawn  upon,  and  one  should  know 
when  to  put  his  hand  in  the  bag  and  what  to  draw  forth.  There 
is  no  rule  except  that  the  connective  used  must  justify  its  use  by 
the  assistance  it  gives  to  the  advance  of  the  thought.1 

Emphasis  in  a  paragraph  depends  naturally  somewhat  upon 
proportion.  You  must  develop  most  extensively  that  part  of  your 
thought  which  seems  to  be  most  important.  But  it  depends  even 
more  extensively  upon  the  proper  placing  of  your  topic-sentence : 
at  the  beginning,  if  the  topic  can  be  most  effectively  placed  there, 
in  which  case  your  concluding  sentence  should  be  one  which 
forcibly  applies  your  subject,  or  strongly  exemplifies,  illustrates, 
or  proves  it;  at  the  end,  if  the  paragraph  should  be  of  that  type. 
Type  II,  with  a  topic-sentence  at  both  the  beginning  and  the  end, 
is  a  very  emphatic  variety,  although  a  rather  artificial  one,  for  in 
it  the  emphasis  by  position  of  the  topic  is  assured.  Type  IV, 

1  See  Appendix  I  for  a  list  of  these  connectives. 


go  ENGLISH   COMPOSITION 

where  the  topic  is  implied,  not  stated  in  a  sentence,  must  be  given 
the  emphasis  of  position  by  placing  the  more  important  incidents, 
details,  or  circumstances  at  the  beginning  and  end. 

And  last,  a  concluding  word  of  caution  and  advice.  Analyze 
for  type,  and  for  thought  development,  as  many  paragraphs  in 
literature,  current  or  classical,  as  time  will  permit.  Write  para- 
graphs of  as  many  varieties,  both  as  to  type  and  as  to  thought 
development,  as  your  time  will  permit;  and  neither  underestimate 
the  extreme  difficulty  of  attaining  a  complete  mastery,  nor  neglect 
the  great  advantage  of  even  a  slight  increase  in  proficiency.  And 
above  all,  as  soon  as  you  have  attained  a  reasonable  proficiency, 
vary  your  study  of  structure  with  periods  of  free  writing,  when 
you  may  apply  creatively  all  you  have  learned  by  analysis,  and 
develop  an  interesting  thought  by  the  methods  best  adapted  to 
make  that  thought  useful  to  the  reader  for  whom  you  write.  Learn 
all  the  resources  of  the  good  writer,  but  do  not  be  content  with  the 
learning,  which  if  you  stop  there,  is  valueless.  Put  them  in 
practice;  use  them;  make  them  do  good  work. 

This  extraordinary  transformation  from  the  fixed  habit  of  thirty 
years,  to  which  we  can  find  no  parallel  in  history,  declares  two 
facts.  One  is  the  remarkable  character  of  the  man  who  has  shown 
himself  sufficient  for  these  things.  Abdul  Hamid  has  often  been, 
and  we  believe  justly,  credited  with  exceptional  shrewdness  and 
information  as  a  statesman  and  a  sovereign,  and  we  must  now  add 
thereto  unsurpassed  power  of  adaptation  and  resolution  as  a  man. 
The  other  thing  is  the  sincere  and  thorough  character  of  the  rev- 
olution itself.  A  revolution  with  the  Sultan  still  behind  barred 
doors  at  Yildiz  might  or  might  not  have  been  maintained.  A 
revolution  with  the  Sultan  at  its  head  and  with  the  Sultan  himself 
thus  completely  revolutionized  is  assuredly  meant  to  be  and  will 
be  permanent. 

Extreme  busyness,  whether  at  school  or  college,  kirk  or  market, 
is  a  symptom  of  deficient  vitality;  and  a  faculty  for  idleness  implies 
a  catholic  appetite  and  a  strong  sense  of  personal  identity.  There 
is  a  sort  of  dead-alive,  hackneyed  people  about,  who  are  scarcely 
conscious  of  living  except  in  the  exercise  of  some  conventipnal 
occupation.  Bring  these  fellows  into  the  country,  or  set  them 


THE  PARAGRAPH  91 

aboard  ship,  and  you  will  see  how  they  pine  for  their  desk  or  their 
study.  They  have  no  curiosity;  they  cannot  give  themselves  over 
to  random  provocations ;  they  do  not  take  pleasure  in  the  exercise 
of  their  faculties  for  its  own  sake ;  and  unless  Necessity  lays  about 
them  with  a  stick,  they  will  even  stand  still.  It  is  no  good  speak- 
ing to  such  folk :  they  cannot  be  idle,  their  nature  is  not  generous 
enough ;  and  they  pass  those  hours  in  a  sort  of  coma,  which  are 
not  dedicated  to  furious  moiling  in  the  gold  mill.  When  they  do 
not  require  to  go  to  the  office,  when  they  are  not  hungry  and  have 
no  mind  to  drink,  the  whole  breathing  world  is  a  blank  to  them. 
If  they  have  to  wait  an  hour  or  so  for  a  train,  they  fall  into  a 
stupid  trance  with  their  eyes  open.  To  see  them,  you  would  sup- 
pose there  was  nothing  to  look  at  and  no  one  to  speak  with;  you 
would  imagine  they  were  paralyzed  or  alienated;  and  yet  very 
possibly  they  are  hard  workers  in  their  own  way,  and  have  good 
eyesight  for  a  flaw  in  a  deed  or  a  turn  of  the  market.  They  have 
been  to  school  and  college,  but  all  the  time  they  had  their  eye  on 
the  medal;  they  have  gone  about  in  the  world  and  mixed  with 
clever  people,  but  all  the  time  they  were  thinking  of  their  own 
affairs.  As  if  a  man's  soul  were  not  too  small  to  begin  with,  they 
have  dwarfed  and  narrowed  theirs  by  a  life  of  all  work  and  no 
play;  until  here  they  are  at  forty,  with  a  listless  attention,  a  mind 
vacant  of  all  material  of  amusement,  and  not  one  thought  to  rub 
against  another,  while  they  wait  for  the  train.  Before  he  was 
breeched,  he  might  have  clambered  on  the  boxes ;  when  he  was . 
twenty,  he  would  have  stared  at  the  girls;  but  now  the  pipe  is 
smoked  out,  the  snuffbox  empty,  and  my  gentleman  sits  bolt  up- 
right upon  a  bench,  with  lamentable  eyes.  This  does  not  appeal 
to  me  as  being  Success  in  Life. 

— STEVENSON. 

Practically  all  of  the  Southern  railways  employ  both  black  and 
white  firemen.  This  has  been  a  practice  of  years'  standing. 
There  may  be  one  or  two  exceptions  to  the  general  rule.  Never 
until  the  present  instance  has  the  custom  caused  the  slightest 
dissatisfaction  or  disturbance.  It  is  not  possible  to  say  how  many 
negroes  are  employed  as  firemen,  and  how  many  white  men,  or 
what  proportion  of  the  total  of  firemen  on  Southern  railroad  lines 


Q2  ENGLISH   COMPOSITION 

are  negroes,  and  what  proportion  are  whites.  There  is  no  central 
point  of  inquiry  where  such  information  may  be  obtained.  Of 
course,  each  of  the  carriers  knows  how  many  negro  firemen  it 
employs,  and  how  many  white  firemen,  but,  under  present  con- 
ditions, they  are  not  inclined  to  make  that  information  public. 

We  were  now  standing  at  a  great  altitude  between  two  bays: 
the  wilderness  of  waters  before  us.  Of  all  the  ten  thousand  barks 
which  annually  plow  those  seas  in  sight  of  that  old  cape,  not  one 
was  to  be  descried.  It  was  a  blue  shiny  waste,  broken  by  no 
object  save  the  black  head  of  a  spermaceti  whale,  which  would 
occasionally  show  itself  on  the  top,  casting  up  thin  jets  of  brine. 
The  principal  bay,  that  of  Finisterra,  as  far  as  the  entrance,  was 
beautifully  variegated  by  an  immense  shoal  of  sardinhas,  on  whose 
extreme  skirts  the  monster  was  probably  feasting.  From  the  north- 
ern side  of  the  cape  we  looked  down  upon  a  smaller  bay,  the 
shore  of  which  was  overhung  by  rocks  of  various  and  grotesque 
shapes;  this  is  called  the  outer  bay,  or,  in  the  language  of  the 
country,  Prai  do  mar  defora :  a  fearful  place  in  seasons  of  wind  and 
tempests,  when  the  long  swell  of  the  Atlantic  pouring  in,  is  broken 
into  surf  and  foam  by  the  sunken  rocks  with  which  it  abounds. 
Even  in  the  calmest  day  there  is  a  rumbling  and  a  hollow  roar  in 
that  bay  which  fill  the  heart  with  uneasy  sensations. 

—  BORROW. 

The  world,  —  this  shadow  of  the  soul,  or  other  me,  lies  wide 
around.  Its  attractions  are  the  keys  which  unlock  my  thoughts 
and  make  me  acquainted  with  myself.  I  launch  eagerly  into  this 
resounding  tumult.  I  grasp  the  hands  of  those  next  me,  and  take 
my  place  in  the  ring  to  suffer  and  to  work,  taught  by  an  instinct 
that  so  shall  the  dumb  abyss  be  vocal  with  speech.  I  pierce  its 
order;  I  dissipate  its  fear;  I  dispose  of  it  within  the  circuit  of  my 
expanding  life.  So  much  only  of  life  as  I  know  by  experience,  so 
much  of  the  wilderness  have  I  vanquished  and  planted,  or  so  far 
have  I  extended  my  being,  my  dominion.  I  do  not  see  how  any 
man  can  afford,  for  the  sake  of  his  nerves  and  his  nap,  to  spare  any 
action  in  which  he  can  partake.  It  is  pearls  and  rubies  to  his  dis- 
course. Drudgery,  calamity,  exasperation,  want,  are  instructors  in 


THE  PARAGRAPH 


93 


eloquence  and  wisdom .     The  true  scholar  grudges  every  opportunity 

of  action  passed  by,  as  a  loss  of  power. 

—  EMERSON. 

The  modern  system  not  only  demands  young  men,  but  rapidly 
uses  them  up.  An  up-to-date  factory  devours  bone  and  muscle 
as  remorselessly  as  coal  and  pig  iron ;  on  railroads  men  wear  out 
and  have  to  be  replaced  almost  as  rapidly  as  steel  rails.  In  that 
prosaic  account  called  by  all  corporations  "depreciation  of  plant," 
the  human  element  is  by  far  the  most  conspicuous  item.  The 
pace  is  so  rapid  that  men  are  not  infrequently  superannuated  at 
fifty  or  fifty-five;  at  sixty,  many  are  physical  and  mental  shells. 
The  minute  specialization  of  the  modern  system  reduces  employees 
to  mere  automatons.  They  do  not  have  that  wide  interest  in 
their  work  and  that  close  association  with  the  outside  world  that 
gave  the  old-fashioned  workman  a  hold  on  life  and  helped  to  keep 
him  young. 

Comparison  of  this  period  with  the  "promotion  era"  of  ten 
years  ago,  however,  will  in  numerous  respects  fail  to  establish  a 
parallel.  The  existence  of  a  huge  fund  of  ready  money  in  the  pub- 
lic's hands  was  an  important  factor  in  the  outcome  then ;  but  the 
appeal  to  the  public's  imagination,  through  the  visible  trade  phe- 
nomena of  the  day,  was  at  least  equally  important.  Things  were 
happening  then,  in  our  industrial  history,  which  astonished  and 
excited  even  conservative  observers.  We  were  feeding  Europe, 
for  one  thing;  our  wheat  crops  and  our  wheat  exports  had  sur- 
passed all  precedent,  while  Europe's  harvests  had  failed.  Gold 
was  pouring  into  America  from  abroad  in  unprecedented  quantity. 
We  were  invading  Europe's  markets  for  manufactured  goods,  and 
had  piled  up  an  excess  of  $600,000,000  in  merchandise  exports 
over  imports,  where  no  previous  year  had  achieved  so  much  of  an 
excess  as  $300,000,000.  Our  bankers  were  lending  huge  sums 
of  money  to  the  British  Government,  and  buying  up  control  of 
British  steamship  lines  on  a  scale  which  was  thought  at  the  time 
to  threaten  England's  maritime  supremacy.  This  was  very 
obvious  material  for  arousing,  not  only  the  speculative  instinct, 
but  absolute  confidence  in  any  sort  of  incorporated  enterprise  put 
out  under  the  auspices  of  important  capitalists.  Behind  all  this 


94  ENGLISH  COMPOSITION 

was  the  fact  of  the  accumulation  of  capital,  during  the  rigorous 
personal  and  business  economies  practiced  by  the  people  as  a 
whole  for  nearly  half  a  dozen  years. 

But  in  a  larger  sense  we  cannot  dedicate  —  we  cannot  conse- 
crate _  we  cannot  hallow  —  this  ground.  The  brave  men,  living 
and  dead,  who  struggled  here,  have  consecrated  it,  far  above 
our  power  to  add  or  detract.  The  world  will  little  note,  nor  long 
remember,  what  we  say  here,  but  it  can  never  forget  what  they 
did  here.  It  is  for  us  the  living,  rather,  to  be  dedicated  here  to 
the  unfinished  work  which  they  who  fought  here  have  thus  far 
nobly  advanced.  It  is  rather  for  us  to  be  here  dedicated  to  the 
great  task  remaining  before  us  —  that  from  these  honored  dead 
we  take  increased  devotion  to  that  cause  for  which  they  gave  the 
last  full  measure  of  devotion  —  that  we  here  highly  resolve  that 
these  dead  shall  not  have  died  in  vain  —  that  this  nation,  under 
God,  shall  have  a  new  birth  of  freedom  —  and  that  government 
of  the  people,  by  the  people,  for  the  people,  shall  not  perish  from 

the  earth. 

— LINCOLN. 

Starting  from  the  log  with  a  certain  alacrity  in  his  gait,  and 
ascending  the  hillock  of  earth  that  was  raised  against  the  stone 
circumference  of  the  lime  kiln,  he  thus  reached  the  top  of  the 
structure.  It  was  a  space  of  perhaps  ten  feet  across,  from  edge 
to  edge,  presenting  a  view  of  the  upper  surface  of  the  immense 
mass  of  broken  marble  with  which  the  kiln  was  heaped.  All 
these  innumerable  blocks  and  fragments  of  marble  were  red-hot 
and  vividly  on  fire,  sending  up  great  spouts  of  blue  flame,  which 
quivered  aloft  and  danced  madly,  as  within  a  magic  circle,  and 
sank  and  rose  again,  with  continual  and  multitudinous  activity. 
As  the  lonely  man  bent  forward  over  this  terrible  body  of  fire, 
the  blasting  heat  smote  up  against  his  person  with  a  breath  that, 
it  might  be  supposed,  would  have  scorched  and  shriveled  him 
up  in  a  moment. 

—  HAWTHORNE. 

While  our  historians  are  practicing  all  the  arts  of  controversy, 
they  miserably  neglect  the  art  of  narration,  the  art  of  interesting 


THE  PARAGRAPH 


95 


the  affections  and  presenting  pictures  to  the  imagination.  That 
a  writer  may  produce  these  effects  without  violating  truth,  is  suffi- 
ciently proved  by  many  excellent  biographical  works.  The  im- 
mense popularity  which  well-written  books  of  this  kind  have 
acquired,  deserves  the  serious  consideration  of  historians.  Voltaire's 
Charles  the  Twelfth,  Marmontel's  Memoirs,  Boswell's  Life  of 
Johnson,  Southey's  Account  of  Nelson,  are  perused  with  delight 
by  the  most  frivolous  and  indolent.  Whenever  any  tolerable  book 
of  the  same  description  makes  its  appearance,  the  circulating 
libraries  are  mobbed;  the  book  societies  are  in  commotion;  the 
new  novel  lies  uncut;  the  magazines  and  newspapers  fill  their 
columns  with  extracts.  In  the  meantime,  histories  of  great 
empires,  written  by  men  of  eminent  ability,  lie  unread  on  the 

shelves  of  ostentatious  libraries. 

—  MACAULAY. 

There  are  some  very  odd  things  any  anatomist  can  tell,  show- 
ing how  our  recent  contrivances  are  anticipated  in  the  human 
body.  In  the  alimentary  canal  there  are  certain  pointed  eminences 
called  villi,  and  certain  ridges  called  valvula  conniventes.  The 
makers  of  heating  apparatus  have  exactly  reproduced  the  first  in 
the  "pot"  of  their  furnaces,  and  the  second  in  many  of  the  radiators 
to  be  seen  in  our  public  buildings.  The  object  in  the  body  and  in 
the  heating  apparatus  is  the  same  -••  to  increase  the  extent  of  sur- 
face. We  mix  hair  with  plaster  (as  the  Egyptians  mixed  straw 
with  clay  to  make  bricks),  so  that  it  shall  hold  more  firmly.  But 
before  man  had  any  artificial  dwelling,  the  same  contrivance  of 
mixing  fibrous  threads  with  a  cohesive  substance  had  been  em- 
ployed in  the  jointed  fabric  of  his  own  spinal  column.  .  .  .  The 
dome,  the  round  and  the  Gothic  arch,  the  groined  roof,  the  flying 
buttress,  are  all  familiar  to  those  who  have  studied  the  bony  frame 
of  man.  All  forms  of  the  lever,  and  all  the  principal  kinds  of 

hinges,  are  to  be  met  with  in  our  own  frames. 

—  HOLMES. 

The  writings  of  Charles  Lamb  are  an  excellent  illustration  of  the 
value  of  reserve  in  literature.  Below  his  quiet,  his  quaintness,  his 
humor,  and  what  may  seem  the  slightness,  the  occasional  or 
accidental  character  of  his  work,  there  lies,  as  I  said  at  starting,  as 


96  ENGLISH   COMPOSITION 

in  his  life,  a  genuinely  tragic  element.  The  gloom,  reflected  at  its 
darkest  in  those  hard  shadows  of  Rosamund  Grey,  is  always  there, 
though  not  always  realized  either  for  himself  or  his  readers,  and  re- 
strained always  in  utterance.  It  gives  to  those  lighter  matters  on 
the  surface  of  life  and  literature  among  which  he  for  the  most  part 
moved,  a  wonderful  force  of  expression,  as  if  at  any  moment  these 
slight  words  and  fancies  might  pierce  very  far  into  the  deeper 
soul  of  things.  In  his  writing,  as  in  his  life,  that  quiet  is  not  the 
low-flying  of  one  from  the  first  drowsy  by  choice,  and  needing  the 
prick  of  some  strong  passion  or  worldly  ambition,  to  stimulate  him 
into  all  the  energy  of  which  he  is  capable ;  but  rather  the  reaction 
of  nature,  after  an  escape  from  fate,  dark  and  insane  as  in  old 
Greek  tragedy,  following  upon  which  the  sense  of  mere  relief  be- 
comes a  kind  of  passion,  as  with  one  who,  having  narrowly  escaped 
earthquake  or  shipwreck,  finds  a  thing  for  grateful  tears  in  just 
sitting  quiet  at  home,  under  the  wall,  till  the  end  of  days. 

—  PATER. 

But  there  is  of  culture  another  view,  in  which  not  solely  the 
scientific  passion,  the  sheer  desire  to  see  things  as  they  are,  natural 
and  proper  in  an  intelligent  being,  appears  as  the  ground  of  it. 
There  is  a  view  in  which  all  the  love  of  our  neighbor,  the  impulses 
towards  action,  help,  and  beneficence,  the  desire  for  removing 
human  error,  clearing  human  confusion,  and  diminishing  human 
misery,  the  noble  aspiration  to  leave  the  world  better  and  happier 
than  we  found  it,  —  motives  eminently  such  as  are  called  social,  — 
come  in  as  part  of  the  grounds  of  culture,  and  the  main  and  pre- 
eminent part.  Culture  is  then  properly  described,  not  as  having 
its  origin  in  curiosity/Tsut  as  having  its  origin  in  the  love  of  per- 
fection; it  is  a^stutty  of  perfection.  It  moves  by  the  force,  not 
merely  or  primarily  of  the  scientific  passion  for  pure  knowledge, 
but  also  of  the  moral  and  social  passion  for  doing  good.  As,  in 
the  first  view  of  it,  we  took  for  its  worthy  motto  Montesquieu's 
words:  "To  render  an  intelligent  being  yet  more  intelligent!" 
so,  in  the  second  view  of  it,  there  is  no  better  motto  which  it  can 
have  than  these  words  of  Bishop  Wilson:  "To  make  reason  and 
the  will  of  God  prevail!" 

—  ARNOLD. 


THE  PARAGRAPH  97 

Religion  apart,  they  are  an  unreverential  people.  I  do  not 
mean  irreverent,  —  far  from  it;  nor  do  I  mean  that  they  have  not 
a  great  capacity  for  hero-worship,  as  they  have  many  a  time  shown. 
I  mean  that  they  are  little  disposed,  especially  in  public  ques- 
tions —  political,  economical,  or  social  —  to  defer  to  the  opinions 
of  those  who  are  wiser  or  better  instructed  than  themselves. 
Everything  tends  to  make  the  individual  independent  and  self- 
reliant.  He  goes  early  into  the  world ;  he  is  left  to  make  his  way 
alone ;  he  tries  one  occupation  after  another,  if  the  first  or  second 
venture  does  not  prosper;  he  gets  to  think  that  each  man  is  his 
own  best  helper  and  adviser.  Thus  he  is  led,  I  will  not  say  to 
form  his  own  opinions,  for  even  in  America  few  are  those  who  do 
that,  but  to  fancy  that  he  has  formed  them,  and  to  feel  little  need 
of  aid  from  others  towards  correcting  them.  There  is,  therefore, 
less  disposition  than  in  Europe  to  expect  light  and  leading  on 
public  affairs  from  speakers  or  writers.  Oratory  is  not  directed 
towards  instruction,  but  towards  stimulation.  Special  knowledge, 
which  commands  deference  in  applied  science  or  in  finance,  does 
not  command  it  in  politics,  because  that  is  not  deemed  a  special 
subject,  but  one  within  the  comprehension  of  every  practical  man. 
Politics  is,  to  be  sure,  a  profession,  and  so  far  might  seem  to  need 
professional  aptitudes.  But  the  professional  politician  is  not  the 
man  who  has  studied  statesmanship,  but  the  man  who  has  prac- 
ticed the  art  of  running  conventions  and  winning  elections. 

—  BRYCE. 

It  will  hardly  be  disputed  that  the  bad  negro  is  always  an  idle 
negro.  He  is  charged,  and  rightly,  with  being  the  cause  of  most 
of  the  troubles  which  give  occasion  for  lynchings  and  race  out- 
breaks in  the  Southern  States.  Next  to  the  absolutely  idle  negro 
as  a  cause  of  trouble  and  a  source  of  race  prejudice,  is  the  negro 
with  irresponsible  and  irregular  employment  that  enables  him  to 
live  for  five  days  on  the  earnings  of  two.  The  negro  who  is  the 
least  source  of  trouble,  who  is  self-respecting,  and  who  does  not 
figure  in  clashes  between  the  races,  is  the  man  who  has  steady, 
responsible  employment,  who  is  kept  regularly  at  work,  and  whose 
duties  require  sobriety,  faithfulness,  intelligence,  and  the  respect 
and  good  will  of  his  employers. 


9g  ENGLISH  COMPOSITION 

Mannerism  is  pardonable,  and  is  sometimes  even  agreeable, 
when  the  manner,  though  vicious,  is  natural.  Few  readers,  for 
example,  would  be  willing  to  part  with  the  mannerism  of  Milton 
or  of  Burke.  But  a  mannerism  which  does  not  sit  easy  on  the 
mannerist,  which  has  been  adopted  on  principle,  and  which  can 
be  sustained  only  by  constant  effort,  is  always  offensive.  And 
such  is  the  mannerism  of  Johnson. 

—  MACAULAY. 

Of  course,  there  is  a  portion  of  reading  quite  indispensable  to  a 
wise  man.  History  and  exact  science  he  must  learn  by  laborious 
reading.  Colleges,  in  like  manner,  have  their  indispensable 
office,  —  to  teach  elements.  But  they  can  only  highly  serve  us, 
when  they  aim  not  to  drill,  but  to  create ;  when  they  gather  from 
far  every  ray  of  various  genius  to  their  hospitable  halls,  and,  by 
the  concentrated  fires,  set  the  hearts  of  their  youth  on  flame. 
Thought  and  knowledge  are  natures  in  which  apparatus  and  pre- 
tension avail  nothing.  Gowns  and  pecuniary  foundations,  though 
of  towns  of  gold,  can  never  countervail  the  least  sentence  or 
syllable  of  wit.  Forget  this,  and  our  American  colleges  will  recede 
in  their  public  importance,  whilst  they  grow  richer  every  year. 

—  EMERSON. 

Faith  in  machinery  is,  I  said,  our  besetting  danger;  often  in 
machinery  most  absurdly  disproportioned  to  the  end  which  this 
machinery,  if  it  is  to  do  any  good  at  all,  is  to  serve;  but  always 
in  machinery,  as  if  it  had  a  value  in  and  for  itself.  What  is 
freedom  but  machinery?  what  is  population  but  machinery? 
what  is  coal  but  machinery?  what  are  railroads  but  machinery? 
what  is  wealth  but  machinery?  what  are,  even,  religious  organi- 
zations but  machinery?  Now  almost  every  voice  in  England  is 
accustomed  to  speak  of  these  things  as  if  they  were  precious 
ends  in  themselves,  and  therefore  had  some  of  the  characters 
of  perfection  indisputably  joined  to  them.  I  have  before  now 
noticed  Mr.  Roebuck's  stock  argument  for  proving  the  greatness 
and  happiness  of  England  as  she  is,  and  for  quite  stopping  the 
mouths  of  all  gainsayers.  Mr.  Roebuck  is  never  weary  of  reit- 
erating this  argument  of  his,  so  I  do  not  know  why  I  should  be 


THE  PARAGRAPH  99 

weary  of  noticing  it.  "May  not  every  man  in  England  say  what 
he  likes?"  Mr.  Roebuck  perpetually  asks;  and  that,  he  thinks, 
is  quite  sufficient,  and  when  every  man  may  say  what  he  likes, 
our  aspirations  ought  to  be  satisfied.  But  the  aspirations  of  cul- 
ture, which  is  the  study  of  perfection,  are  not  satisfied,  unless 
what  men  say,  when  they  may  say  what  they  like,  is  worth  saying, 
—  has  good  in  it,  and  more  good  than  bad.  In  the  same  way  the 
Times,  replying  to  some  foreign  strictures  on  the  dress,  looks, 
and  behavior  of  the  English  abroad,  urges  that  the  English 
ideal  is  that  every  one  should  be  free  to  do  and  to  look  just 'as 
he  likes.  But  culture  indefatigably  tries,  not  to  make  what  each 
raw  person  may  like  the  rule  by  which  he  fashions  himself ;  but 
to  draw  ever  nearer  to  a  sense  of  what  is  indeed  beautiful,  grace- 
ful, and  becoming,  and  to  get  the  raw  person  to  like  that. 

—  ARNOLD. 

Charles,  however,  had  one  advantage,  which,  if  he  had  used 
it  well,  would  have  more  than  compensated  for  the  want  of  stores 
and  money,  and  which,  notwithstanding  his  mismanagement, 
gave  him,  during  some  months,  a  superiority  in  the  war.  His 
troops  at  first  fought  much,  better  than  those  of  the  Parliament. 
Both  armies,  it  is  true,  were  almost  entirely  composed  of  men 
who  had  never  seen  a  field  of  battle.  Nevertheless,  the  difference 
was  great.  The  parliamentary  ranks  were  filled  with  hirelings 
whom  want  and  idleness  had  induced  to  enlist.  Hampden's 
regiment  was  regarded  as  one  of  the  best;  and  even  Hampden's 
regiment  was  described  by  Cromwell  as  a  mere  rabble  of  tapsters 
and  serving  men  out  of  place.  The  royal  army,  on  the  other 
hand,  consisted  in  great  part  of  gentlemen,  high-spirited,  ardent, 
accustomed  to  consider  dishonor  as  more  terrible  than  death, 
accustomed  to  fencing,  to  the  use  of  firearms,  to  bold  riding,  and 
to  manly  and  perilous  sport,  which  has  been  well  called  the  image 
of  war.  Such  gentlemen,  mounted  on  their  favorite  horses,  and 
commanding  little  bands,  composed  of  their  younger  brothers, 
grooms,  gamekeepers,  and  huntsmen,  were,  from  the  very  first  day 
on  which  they  took  the  field,  qualified  to  play  their  part  with 
credit  in  a  skirmish.  The  steadiness,  the  prompt  obedience,  the 
mechanical  precision  of  movement,  which  are  characteristic  of  the 


I00  ENGLISH  COMPOSITION 

regular  soldier,  these  gallant  volunteers  never  attained.  But  they 
were  at  first  opposed  to  enemies  as  undisciplined  as  themselves, 
and  far  less  active,  athletic,  and  daring.  For  a  time,  therefore,  the 
Cavaliers  were  successful  in  almost  every  encounter. 

—  MACAULAY. 

Thus  began  that  memorable  war  which,  kindling  among  the 
forests  of  America,  scattered  its  fires  over  the  kingdoms  of  Europe, 
and  the  sultry  empire  of  the  Great  Mogul ;  the  war  made  glorious 
by  the  heroic  death  of  Wolfe,  the  victories  of  Frederic,  and  the 
marvelous  exploits  of  Clive ;  the  war  which  controlled  the  destinies 
of  America,  and  was  first  in  the  chain  of  events  which  led  on  to  her 
Revolution,  with  all  its  vast  and  undeveloped  consequences.  On 
the  old  battle-ground  of  Europe,  the  struggle  bore  the  same  familiar 
features  of  violence  and  horror  which  had  marked  the  strife  of 
former  generations  —  fields  plowed  by  the  cannon  ball,  and  walls 
shattered  by  the  exploding  mine,  sacked  towns  and  blazing  suburbs, 
the  lamentations  of  women,  and  the  license  of  a  maddened  soldiery. 
But  in  America,  war  assumed  a  new  and  striking  aspect.  A  wilder- 
ness was  its  sublime  arena.  Army  met  army  under  the  shadows 
of  primeval  woods ;  their  cannon  resounded  over  wastes  unknown 
to  civilized  man.  And  before  the  hostile  powers  could  join  in 
battle,  endless  forests  must  be  traversed,  and  morasses  passed,  and 
everywhere  the  ax  of  the  pioneer  must  hew  a  path  for  the  bayonet 
of  the  soldier. 

—  PARKMAN. 

All  the  world  knows  that  they  are  a  humorous  people.  They 
are  as  conspicuously  the  purveyors  of  humor  to  the  nineteenth 
century  as  the  French  were  the  purveyors  of  wit  to  the  eighteenth. 
Nor  is  this  sense  of  the  ludicrous  side  of  things  confined  to  a  few 
brilliant  writers.  It  is  diffused  among  the  whole  people;  it 
colors  their  ordinary  life,  and  gives  to  their  talk  that  distinctively 
new  flavor  which  a  European  palate  enjoys.  Their  capacity  for 
enjoying  a  joke  against  themselves  was  oddly  illustrated  at  the 
outset  of  the  Civil  War,  a  time  of  stern  excitement,  by  the  merri- 
ment which  arose  over  the  hasty  retreat  of  the  Federal  troops  at 
the  battle  of  Bull  Run.  When  William  M.  Tweed  was  ruling  and 


THE  PARAGRAPH  IOI 

robbing  New  York,  and  had  set  on  the  bench  men  who  were 
openly  prostituting  justice,  the  citizens  found  the  situation  so 
amusing  that  they  almost  forgot  to  be  angry.  Much  of  President 
Lincoln's  popularity,  and  much  also  of  the  gift  he  showed  for 
restoring  confidence  to  the  North  at  the  darkest  moments  of  the 
war,  was  due  to  the  humorous  way  he  used  to  turn  things,  convey- 
ing the  impression  of  not  being  himself  uneasy,  even  when  he  was 

mostso-  -BRYCE. 

Such  we  believe  to  have  been  the  character  of  the  Puritans.  We 
perceive  the  absurdity  of  their  manners.  We  dislike  the  sullen 
gloom  of  their  domestic  habits.  We  acknowledge  that  the  tone 
of  their  minds  was  often  injured  by  straining  after  things  too  high 
for  mortal  reach.  And  we  know  that,  in  spite  of  their  hatred  of 
Popery,  they  too  often  fell  into  the  worst  vices  of  that  bad  sys- 
tem, intolerance  and  extravagant  austerity  —  that  they  had  their 
anchorites  and  their  crusades,  their  Dunstans  and  their  De  Mont- 
forts,  their  Dominies  and  their  Escobars.  Yet  when  all  circum- 
stances are  taken  into  consideration,  we  do  not  hesitate  to  pro- 
nounce them  a  brave,  a  wise,  an  honest,  and  a  useful  body. 

—  MACAULAY. 

The  signals  from  the  earth  should  be  kept  up  for  three  or  four 
months,  and  at  the  end  of  the  year  they  should  be  started  again, 
and  continued,  perhaps,  for  several  years.  It  is  reasonable  to 
expect  that  if  there  are  Martians  in  existence  of  sufficient  intelli- 
gence to  take  notice  of  these  signals,  they  will  have  done  so  by 
that  time,  if  they  are  going  to  do  it  at  all.  It  is  probable  that  they 
would  erect  some  apparatus  similar  to  the  signal-flashing  mirrors 
on  the  earth.  Then,  if  flashes  similar  to  those  sent  from  the  earth 
were  flashed  from  Mars,  a  system  of  dots  and  dashes  would  have 
to  be  studied  out.  In  hoping  to  get  such  signals  back,  we  must 
assume,  of  course,  that  the  Martians,  if  there  are  any,  have  tele- 
scopes, eyes,  etc.,  just  as  human  beings  have  on  this  earth. 

The  actual  apparatus,  like  all  products  of  genius,  is  simplicity 
itself.  It  possessed  all  the  elements  of  portability,  flexibility,  and 
control  requisite  to  the  purpose  in  view.  Its  essentials  are,  at  the 


I02  ENGLISH  COMPOSITION 

transmitting  station,  a  source  of  electricity,  such  as  an  accumulator, 
a  spark  coil,  control  keys,  a  selective  device,  and  a  wave  trans- 
former and  transmitter.  This  equipment,  which  is  under  the 
control  of  an  operator,  is  placed  on  shore  or  on  the  deck  of  a  bat- 
tleship, cruiser,  destroyer,  or  submarine,  as  the  case  may  be.  The 
outfit  weighs  about  200  Ibs.,  a  mere  bagatelle  compared  with  the 
massive  construction  of  the  battleship  which  it  may  be  instru- 
mental in  sinking. 

"Why,  it  is  not  very  easy:  two  things  are  needful  —  natural 
talent,  and  constant  practice;  but  I'll  show  you  a  point  or  two 
connected  with  the  game";  and,  placing  his  table  between  his 
knees  as  he  sat  over  the  side  of  the  pit,  he  produced  three  thimbles, 
and  a  small  brown  pellet,  something  resembling  a  pea.  He 
moved  the  thimble  and  the  pellet  about,  now  placing  it  to  all 
appearance  under  one,  and  now  under  another.  "Under  which 
is  it  now?"  he  said  at  last.  "Under  that,"  said  I,  pointing  to  the 
lowermost  of  the  thimbles,  which,  as  they  stood,  formed  a  kind 
of  triangle.  "No,"  said  he,  "it  is  not,  but  lift  it  up";  and,  when 
I  lifted  up  the  thimble,  the  pellet,  in  truth,  was  not  under  it.  "It 
was  under  none  of  them,"  said  he;  "it  was  pressed  by  my  little 
finger  against  my  palms";  and  then  he  showed  me  how  he  did  the 
trick,  and  asked  me  if  the  game  was  not  a  funny  one;  and,  on  my 
answering  in  the  affirmative,  he  said,  "I  am  glad  you  like  it;  come 

along  and  let  us  win  some  money." 

—BORROW. 

The  true  basis  for  the  estimation  of  a  nation's  wealth  is  to  be 
found  in  the  enjoyment  of  its  members.  The  wealth  of  a  com- 
munity does  not  depend  upon  the  money  value  of  its  means  for 
such  enjoyment,  nor  even  on  their  physical  amount,  but  on  their 
utilization.  Public  wealth  is  "a  flow  and  not  a  fund";  it  is  to  be 
measured  as  income  and  not  as  capital. 

— HADLEY. 

If  a  man  for  a  series  of  years  earns  $10,000  a  year  and  spends 
it  all,  he  is  always  rich  in  one  sense,  and  never  in  another.  He 
has  much  income  and  no  capital  —  unless  we  stretch  the  idea  of 
capital  wide  enough  to  include  the  skill  which  enables  him  to 


THE  PARAGRAPH  103 

earn  the  large  income.  In  like  manner  a  nation  whose  mem- 
bers habitually  produce  much  and  consume  much,  will  have  large 
enjoyments  and  small  accumulations.  Measured  as  income,  its 
public  wealth  will  be  large ;  measured  as  capital,  it  will  be  small. 

— HADLEY. 

Any  good  effect  of  a  tariff  in  promoting  the  development  of  higher 
grades  of  productive  industry  is  offset  by  its  bad  effect  in  retarding 
the  development  of  varied  consumption.  It  is  a  matter  of  prime 
importance  for  the  community  in  general,  and  the  laborers  in 
particular,  to  have  cheap  goods  placed  within  their  reach.  The 
educational  effect  of  cheapness  in  increasing  consumption  and 
diversifying  the  enjoyments  of  a  community  is  very  great.  A 
tariff  which  temporarily  enhances  prices  for  the  sake  of  indirect 
effects  on  the  producers  is  liable  to  have  an  adverse  effect  on  con- 
sumers which  outweighs  the  possible  good  that  it  might  other- 
wise afford. 

—  HADLEY. 

I  am  struggling  to  maintain  the  government,  not  to  overthrow 
it.  I  am  struggling,  especially,  to  prevent  others  from  overthrow- 
ing it.  I  therefore  say,  that  if  I  shall  live,  I  shall  remain  president 
until  the  4th  of  next  March ;  and  that  whoever  shall  be  consti- 
tutionally elected  therefor  in  November,  shall  be  duly  installed 
as  president  on  the  4th  of  March ;  and  that,  in  the  interval,  I  shall 
do  my  utmost  that  whoever  is  to  hold  the  helm  for  the  next  voyage 
shall  start  with  the  best  possible  chance  to  save  the  ship. 

—  LINCOLN. 

The  most  reliable  indication  of  public  purpose  in  this  country 
is  derived  through  our  popular  elections.  Judging  by  the  recent 
canvass  and  its  result,  the  purpose  of  the  people,  within  the  loyal 
States,  to  maintain  the  integrity  of  the  Union,  was  never  more 
nearly  unanimous  than  now.  The  extraordinary  calmness  and 
good  order  with  which  millions  of  voters  met  and  mingled  at  the 
polls  give  strong  assurance  of  this.  Not  only  all  those  who  sup- 
ported the  Union  ticket,  so  called,  but  a  great  majority  of  the 
opposing  party  also,  may  be  fairly  claimed  to  entertain  and  to  be 
actuated  by  the  same  purpose.  It  is  an  unanswerable  argument 


I04  ENGLISH   COMPOSITION 

to  this  effect,  that  no  candidate  for  any  office,  high  or  low,  has 
ventured  to  seek  votes  on  the  avowal  that  he  was  for  giving  up  the 

Union'  -LINCOLN. 

What  is  a  trust?  It  is  a  combination  of  capital,  designed  to 
simplify  and  unify  business,  or  a  combination  of  labor,  designed 
to  simplify  and  unify  industry.  It  is  easy  to  see,  therefore,  that 
there  can  be  good  trusts  and  bad  trusts,  just  as  there  can  be  good 
men  and  bad  men.  A  trust  is  a  good  trust  when  it  performs  the 
work  for  which  it  is  organized,  and  produces  better  goods  at  cheaper 
prices,  and  delivers  them  to  the  consumer  more  conveniently  than 
a  dozen  different  concerns  could  do.  The  consumer  is  the  sover- 
eign factor.  The  well-being  of  the  masses  is  the  result  of  every 
industrial  development  that  endures. 

—  BEVERIDGE. 

I  have  lately  come  to  perceive  that  the  one  thing  which  gives 
value  to  any  piece  of  art,  whether  it  be  book,  or  picture,  or  music, 
is  that  subtle  and  evasive  thing  which  is  called  personality.  No 
amount  of  labour,  of  zest,  even  of  accomplishment,  can  make  up 
for  the  absence  of  this  quality.  It  must  be  an  almost  instinctive 
thing,  I  believe.  Of  course,  the  mere  presence  of  personality  in 
a  work  of  art  is  not  sufficient,  because  the  personality  revealed  may 
be  lacking  in  charm;  and  charm,  again,  is  an  instinctive  thing. 
No  artist  can  set  out  to  capture  charm;  he  will  toil  all  the  night 
and  take  nothing;  but  what  every  artist  can  and  must  aim  at  is 
to  have  a  perfectly  sincere  point  of  view.  He  must  take  his  chance 
as  to  whether  his  point  of  view  is  an  attractive  one ;  but  sincerity 
is  the  one  indispensable  thing.  It  is  useless  to  take  opinions  on 
trust,  to  retail  them,  to  adopt  them;  they  must  be  formed,  created, 
felt.  The  work  of  a  sincere  artist  is  almost  certain  to  have  some 
value;  the  work  of  an  insincere  artist  is  of  its  very  nature  worthless. 

— A.  C.  BENSON. 

The  spirit  that  makes  a  man,  when  he  has  once  undertaken 
a  thing,  put  it  through  to  a  finish  and  win  out  no  matter  what  it 
costs  (and  this  was  once  given  as  a  definition  of  the  Yale  spirit) 
is  an  excellent  maxim  for  business  or  politics,  and  one  that  is 


THE  PARAGRAPH  105 

frequently  heard  in  defense  of  the  present  teeth-gritting  state  of 
affairs  between  Harvard  and  Yale.  But  such  a  maxim  cannot  be 
applied  to  athletics.  It  means  the  death  of  athletics.  Its  place 
is  in  the  prize  ring  or  anywhere  you  please  save  in  a  branch 
of  activity  which  is  essentially  a  recreation.  The  true  amateur 
athlete,  the  true  sportsman,  is  one  who  takes  up  a  sport  for  the 
fun  of  it  and  the  love  of  it,  and  to  whom  success  or  defeat  is  a 
secondary  matter  so  long  as  the  play  is  good.  Rivalry  is  a  vital 
element  in  sport;  it  is  from  doing  the  thing  well,  doing  the  thing 
handsomely,  doing  the  thing  intelligently  that  one  derives  the 
pleasure  which  is  the  essence  of  sport.  Even  more  vital  than 
rivalry  itself  is  the  checking  of  its  fierceness  and  bitterness  by  the 
graciousness  of  gentlemanly  feeling.  It  must  be  remembered  that 
pure  rivalry  is  fighting,  and  the  more  its  part  is  magnified  in  sport, 
the  more  sport  takes  on  the  nature  of  a  fight,  —  the  nature  of  the 
sport  which  has  come  to  exist  between  Harvard  and  Yale.  We 
have  to  admit  that  there  are  some  of  us  who  prefer  fighting-fun 
to  sport,  and  there  is  no  doubt  that  the  fighting  is  a  healthy  dis- 
cipline ;  but  the  majority  of  us  do  not,  and  there  is  no  reason  why 
our  athletics  should  be  moulded  to  suit  the  taste  of  the  former,  — 
that  we  should  be  made  to  take  our  fun  with  all  these  convulsions 
and  hysterics.  Yet  just  as  long  as  we  meet  the  present-day  Yale 
such  will  be  the  state  of  things. 

—  WM.  JAMES,  JR.- 

The  artistic  temperament  is  commoner,  I  think,  than  is  sup- 
posed. Most  people  find  it  difficult  to  believe  in  the  existence  of 
it,  unless  it  is  accompanied  by  certain  fragile  signs  of  its  existence, 
such  as  water-color  drawing,  or  a  tendency  to  strum  on  a  piano. 
But,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  the  possession  of  an  artistic  temperament, 
without  the  power  of  expression,  is  one  of  the  commonest  causes 
of  unhappiness  in  the  world.  Who  does  not  know  those  ill- 
regulated,  fastidious  people,  who  have  a  strong  sense  of  their  own 
significance  and  importance,  a  sense  which  is  not  justified  by  any 
particular  performance,  who  are  contemptuous  of  others,  critical, 
hard  to  satisfy,  who  have  a  general  sense  of  disappointment  and 
dreariness,  a  craving  for  recognition,  and  a  feeling  that  they  are 
not  appreciated  at  their  true  worth.  To  such  people,  sensitive, 


I06  ENGLISH  COMPOSITION 

ineffective,  proud,  every  circumstance  of  life  gives  food  for  dis- 
content. They  have  vague  perceptions  which  they  cannot  trans- 
late into  words  or  symbols.  They  find  their  work  humdrum  and 
unexciting,  their  relations  with  others  tiresome;  they  think  that 
under  different  circumstances  and  in  other  surroundings  they 
might  have  played  a  braver  part ;  they  never  realize  that  the  root 
of  their  unhappiness  lies  in  themselves;  and,  perhaps,  it  is  merci- 
ful that  they  do  not,  for  the  fact  that  they  can  accumulate  blame 
upon  the  conditions  imposed  on  them  by  fate  is  the  only  thing 
that  saves  them  from  irreclaimable  depression. 

—  A.  C.  BENSON. 

With  us  in  America,  the  fight  is  between  interests  which  do  not 
want  fair  play  on  the  one  hand,  and  the  people  who  mean  that 
everybody  shall  play  fair  on  the  other  hand.  Here  and  now,  as 
everywhere  and  at  all  times,  the  people  are  winning,  and  will 
completely  win.  But  it  is  a  hard  fight.  Every  man  is  needed. 
Especially  young  men  like  yourselves  are  needed.  If  the  Nation 
were  at  war  —  and  it  may  be  at  war  before  many  years  —  every 
one  of  us  would  gladly  give  his  blood  and  life  for  it  on  the  field  of 
battle.  But  this  is  not  enough ;  every  one  of  us  must  give  his  time 
and  strength  to  the  Nation  in  the  field  of  politics.  The  man  who 
will  not  do  this  does  not  deserve  those  rights  which  his  indifference 
compels  others  to  win  for  him.  The  young  man  who  will  not  take 
part  in  the  Nation's  civil  struggles  for  honesty  and  righteousness 
is  unworthy  of  his  fathers,  who  gave  not  only  their  time  and  strength 
in  the  same  struggle,  but  gave  their  blood  and  lives  on  war's  red 
fields  for  the  same  great  purpose. 

— BEVERIDGE. 

There  are  two  kinds  of  amateur  photographers,  those  who 
simply  enjoy  taking  and  possessing  pictures  of  the  things  that 
interest  them,  and  those  who  enjoy  the  making  even  more  than 
the  taking  of  the  pictures.  The  one  may  use  the  camera  for  the 
sake  of  telling  pictorially  the  story  of  his  travels,  —  the  ocean  trip, 
the  scenes  in  strange  lands  are  all  in  all  to  him.  He  may  use  the 
camera  in  telling  a  picture  story  of  the  children.  He  may  use  it  in 
his  business,  or  with  it  may  cherish  his  favorite  fad,  be  it  golf  or 


THE  PARAGRAPH 


107 


motoring  or  shooting  or  fishing,  and  yet,  perhaps,  will  care  nothing 
for  photography  except  as  a  means  to  an  end  —  the  obtaining  of 
pictures  that  have  the  personal  interest.  To  another,  photography 
appeals  of  itself.  To  him  the  iris  diaphragm  is  more  wonderful 
than  a  carburettor,  pyro  more  interesting  than  gasoline ;  a  tripod 
is  a  thing  of  beauty  compared  with  a  brassie,  an  anastigmat  lens 
is  more  wonderful  than  a  gun  barrel  of  the  finest  Damascus,  and 
for  him  a  piece  of  Velox  paper  has  greater  lure  than  has  the  most 
brilliant  fly  in  the  collection  of  an  Izaak  Walton.  In  either  case 
the  answer  to  the  camera  question  is  —  ''Kodak."  To  either  it 
appeals  by  its  lightness  and  its  well-made-ness.  To  either  it 
appeals  because  no  dark  room  is  needed  for  loading  or  unloading. 

The  task  of  humanity,  to  wit,  the  task  of  organizing  here  on 
earth  a  worthy  social  life,  is  in  one  sense  a  hopelessly  complex 
one.  There  are  our  endlessly  numerous  material  foes,  our  en- 
vironment, our  diseases,  our  weaknesses.  There  are  amongst 
us  men  ourselves,  our  rivalries,  our  selfish  passions,  our  anarchical 
impulses,  our  blindness,  our  weak  wills,  our  short  and  careful 
lives.  These  things  all  stand  in  the  way  of  progress.  For  prog- 
ress, for  organization,  for  life,  for  spirituality,  stand,  as  the  best 
forces,  our  healthier  social  instincts,  our  courage,  our  endurance, 
and  our  insight.  Civilization  depends  upon  these.  How  hopeless 
every  task  of  humanity,  were  not  instinct  often  on  the  side  of  order 
and  of  spirituality.  How  quick  would  come  our  failure,  were 
not  courage  and  endurance  ours.  How  blindly  chance  would 
drive  us,  did  we  not  love  insight  for  its  own  sake,  and  cultivate 
contemplation  even  when  we  know  not  yet  what  use  we  can  make 
of  it.  And  so,  these  three,  if  you  will,  to  wit,  healthy  instinct, 
enduring  courage,  and  contemplative  insight,  rule  the  civilized 
world.  He  who  wants  life  to  prosper  longs  to  have  these  things 
alike  honored  and  cultivated.  They  are  brethren,  these  forces  of 
human  spirituality;  they  cannot  do  without  one  another;  they 
are  all  needed. 

—  ROYCE. 

The  diminution  has  continued.  The  influence  of  Coleridge 
has  waned,  and  Wordsworth's  poetry  can  no  longer  draw  succor 


I0g  ENGLISH  COMPOSITION 

from  this  ally.  The  poetry  has  not,  however,  wanted  eulogists; 
and  it  may  be  said  to  have  brought  its  eulogists  luck,  for  almost 
every  one  who  has  praised  Wordsworth's  poetry  has  praised  it  well. 
But  the  public  has  remained  cold,  or,  at  least,  undetermined. 
Even  the  abundance  of  Mr.  Palgrave's  fine  and  skillfully  chosen 
specimens  of  Wordsworth,  in  the  Golden  Treasury,  surprised  many 
readers,  and  gave  offense  to  not  a  few.  To  tenth-rate  critics  and 
compilers,  for  whom  any  violent  shock  to  the  public  taste  would 
be  a  temerity  not  to  be  risked,  it  is  still  quite  permissible  to  speak 
of  Wordsworth's  poetry,  not  only  with  ignorance,  but  with  im- 
pertinence. On  the  Continent  he  is  almost  unknown. 

— ARNOLD. 

Our  Constitution  does  not  so  manacle  our  hands  and  narrow 
our  vision.  It  is  no  such  charter  of  death.  Our  fathers  did  not 
so  anchor  us  within  a  narrow  harbor  when  the  high  seas  call  us. 
No!  Our  Constitution  is  a  chart  by  which  we  sail  all  seas  and 
make  all  ports.  We  must  provide  for  our  possessions  according 
to  the  wisdom  of  events  —  according  to  the  common  sense  of 
situations.  The  people  of  each  are  unlike  the  people  of  any  other ; 
none  of  them  is  like  the  American  pioneers  who  settled  our  con- 
tinental wilderness.  We  must  adopt  measures  fitting  the  con- 
dition and  the  necessities  of  each,  and  change  those  measures  as 
conditions  and  necessities  change. 

—  BEVERIDGE. 

The  Constitution  must  steadily  grow,  because  the  requirements 
of  the  people  steadily  grow.  As  Mr.  Justice  Story  says  of  the 
Constitution,  "It  was  not  intended  to  provide  merely  for  the 
emergencies  of  a  few  years,  but  was  to  endure  through  a  long  lapse 
of  ages,  the  events  of  which  were  locked  up  in  the  inscrutable  pur- 
poses of  Providence."  The  safety  and  vigor  of  the  British  Con- 
stitution is  not  only  in  the  inviolability  of  the  customs  which  con- 
stitute it,  but  even  more  in  its  powers  of  change  and  growth.  So 
the  vitality  of  the  American  Constitution  and  all  constitutions  must 
reside  in  their  power  to  grow  as  the  people  grow,  and  furnish  scope 
for  the  people's  power  and  the  Nation's  necessities  in  exact  pro- 
portion as  the  people's  power  and  the  Nation's  necessities  enlarge. 

— BEVERJDGE. 


THE  PARAGRAPH  109 

If,  disregarding  conduct  that  is  entirely  private,  we  consider 
only  that  species  of  conduct  which  involves  direct  relations  with 
other  persons ;  and  if  under  the  name  government  we  include  all 
control  of  such  conduct,  however  arising ;  then  we  must  say  that 
the  earliest  kind  of  government,  the  most  general  kind  of  govern- 
ment, and  the  government  which  is  ever  spontaneously  recom- 
mencing, is  the  government  of  ceremonial  observance.  More 
may  be  said.  This  kind  of  government,  besides  preceding  other 
kinds,  and  besides  having  in  all  places  and  times  approached 
nearer  to  universality  of  influence,  has  ever  had,  and  continues  to 
have,  the  largest  share  in  regulating  men's  lives. 

— SPENCER. 

Thus  the  matter  of  life,  so  far  as  we  know  it  (and  we  have  no 
right  to  speculate  on  any  other),  breaks  up,  in  consequence  of 
that  continual  death  which  is  the  condition  of  its  manifesting 
vitality,  into  carbonic  acid,  water,  and  nitrogenous  compounds, 
which  certainly  possess  no  properties  but  those  of  ordinary  matter. 
And  out  of  these  same  forms  of  ordinary  matter,  and  from  none 
which  are  simpler,  the  vegetable  world  builds  up  all  the  protoplasm 
which  keeps  the  animal  world  a-going.  Plants  are  the  accumu- 
lators of  the  power  which  animals  distribute  and  disperse. 

— HUXLEY. 

The  Constitution  has  been  expanded  by  construction  in  two 
ways.  Powers  have  been  exercised,  sometimes  by  the  President, 
more  often  by  the  legislature,  in  passing  statutes,  and  the  question 
has  arisen  whether  the  powers  so  exercised  were  rightfully  ex- 
ercised, i.e.  were  really  contained  in  the  Constitution.  When  the 
question  was  resolved  in  the  affirmative  by  the  court,  the  power 
has  been  henceforth  recognized  as  a  part  of  the  Constitution, 
although,  of  course,  liable  to  be  subsequently  denied  by  a  reversal 
of  the  decision  which  established  it.  This  is  one  way.  The  other 
is  where  some  piece  of  State  legislation  alleged  to  contravene  the 
Constitution  has  been  judicially  decided  to  contravene  it,  and  to 
be  therefore  invalid.  The  decision,  in  narrowing  the  limits  of 
State  authority,  tends  to  widen  the  prohibitive  authority  of  the 
Constitution,  and  confirms  it  in  a  range  and  scope  of  action  which 
was  previously  doubtful. 

— BRYCE. 


IIO  ENGLISH  COMPOSITION 

The  English  people  did  not  ordain  a  written  constitution  be- 
cause their  customs,  their  steadily  developing  modes  of  procedure, 
constituted  their  constitution.  These  customs,  methods,  institu- 
tions had  been  growing  for  centuries.  They  changed  only  as  the 
tree  changes  from  sprig  to  sapling,  from  sapling  to  oak.  The 
roots  of  their  constitution  were  in  remote  history,  and  growth  was 
the  law  of  its  being.  The  violation  of  established  modes  of  pro- 
cedure or  of  universal  privileges  was  certain  to  cause  impeach- 
ment or  revolution  if  attempted  by  Parliament  or  Crown.  Thus 
the  British  Constitution,  springing  from  the  memories  of  the  past, 
is  vitalized  by  the  affections  of  the  present.  It  has  its  security 
not  in  cold  type,  but  in  the  hearts  of  the  people. 

—  BEVERIDGE. 

The  distinction  here  made  between  the  amateur  and  the  pro- 
fessional is  one  that,  for  ordinary  purposes,  is  obvious  enough. 
The  amateur,  we  are  accustomed  to  say,  works  for  love,  and  not 
for  money.  He  cultivates  an  art  or  a  sport,  a  study  or  an  employ- 
ment, because  of  his  taste  for  it ;  he  is  attached  to  it,  not  because 
it  gives  him  a  living,  but  because  it  ministers  to  his  life.  Mr. 
Joseph  Jefferson,  for  instance,  is  classed  as  a  professional  actor 
and  an  amateur  artist.  Charles  Dickens  was  an  amateur  actor 
and  a  professional  novelist.  Your  intermittent  political  reformer 
is  an  amateur.  His  opponent,  the  "ward  man,"  is  a  professional ; 
politics  being  both  his  life  and  his  living,  his  art  and  his  constant 
industry. 

— PERRY. 


CHAPTER  VI 

THE   SENTENCE 

IN  the  first  chapter  of  this  book  you  learned  how  to  construct 
the  whole  composition,  and  saw  that  much  depends  upon  the 
arrangement  of  its  constituent  parts.  In  the  discussion  of  the 
paragraph,  you  studied  these  parts  by  themselves,  and  found  out 
that  they,  as  well  as  the  whole  composition,  are  built  up  according 
to  the  three  principles  of  Unity,  Coherence,  and  Emphasis.  The 
elements  of  which  paragraphs  are  formed,  and  which  are  called 
sentences,  are  now  to  be  studied  in  their  turn,  and  their  structure 
analyzed. 

The  sentence  is  the  smallest  unit  that  can  express  a  complete 
thought;  for,  though  use  is  made,  in  expressing  thought,  of 
certain  symbols  called  words,  these  cannot  carry  thought  of  them- 
selves. They  merely  represent  ideas,  and  it  is  only  when  they  are 
combined  in  certain  relations  that  they  carry  thought.  The  prop- 
erties of  single  words  will  be  discussed  in  a  later  chapter ;  here 
we  are  concerned  with  sentences  as  units  and  with  the  way  that 
they  are  made  coherent  and  emphatic. 

As  a  unit  of  thought,  a  sentence  is  worthy  of  the  closest  care ; 
for  more  genuine  skill  is  required  to  perfect  a  sentence  than  to 
write  a  good  theme.  As  in  a  miniature  there  is  necessary  a  greater 
fineness  of  touch,  and  a  more  careful  handling  of  detail  than  in  a 
large  canvas,  so  in  a  sentence  there  is  need  of  the  greatest  delicacy 
of  treatment.  Here  your  sense  of  fitness,  of  proportion,  and  of 
adaptability  come  most  into  play,  and  your  power  of  accurate 
thinking  must  be  most  ably  concentrated.  There  are  more  things 
to  the  making  of  a  sentence  than  are  dreamed  of  by  the  inexpe- 
rienced writer.  What  some  of  these  are  will  now  be  pointed  out. 

I.  UNITY 

A  sentence  is  usually  defined  as  a  group  of  words  expressing 
a  complete  thought.  To  fulfill  the  requirements  of  the  principle 


II2  ENGLISH  COMPOSITION 

of  Unity,  then,  it  is  necessary  only  that  a  sentence  contain  one 
thought,  and  that  this  thought  be  complete.  This  looks  easy; 
but  your  experience  has  probably  already  shown  you  that  it  is 
not  as  easy  as  it  looks.  What  is  the  trouble  ?  In  the  first  place,  it 
is  not  clear  just  what  is  meant  by  the  word  thought. 

It  is  important  that  the  meaning  of  this  word  should  be  under- 
stood. The  mind,  when  occupied  with  any  subject,  has  in  stock 
a  number  of  impressions  called  concepts,  notions,  or  ideas.  These 
may  at  first  be  vague  and  unrelated ;  but  after  the  thinking  faculty 
is  applied  to  them  they  assume  shape,  and  certain  definite  relations 
between  them  become  evident.  This  process,  by  which  the  re- 
lation is  discovered,  is  called  thought;  and,  somewhat  carelessly, 
the  relation  itself,  when  clearly  defined  in  the  brain,  is  also  called 
a  thought.  The  words  "Birds  are  flying,"  for  instance,  express 
a  thought ;  they  show  a  certain  relation  between  the  idea  "  birds  " 
and  the  idea ' '  flying. "  Or  take  as  an  example  a  longer  sentence :  — 

Charms  strike  the  sight,  but  merit  wins  the  soul. 

Here  there  are  several  ideas,  but  there  is  only  one  thought,  because 
all  the  ideas  are  brought  into  a  certain  relation  with  each  other. 
The  relation  here  is  somewhat  complicated ;  for  the  words,  as  far 
as  the  comma,  express  a  relation  between  "charms"  and  "sight," 
the  words  after  the  comma  express  a  relation  between  "merit" 
and  "soul."  Moreover,  the  sentence  as  a  whole  itself  makes 
known  a  relation  existing  between  these  two  sets  of  relations. 
Thus  there  are  two  minor  thoughts,  each  made  up  of  ideas, 
and  combined  to  form  one  thought.  Further  examples  will  per- 
haps only  add  to  the  fog  instead  of  clearing  it  away.  At  any 
rate,  enough  has  been  said  to  show  that  a  thought  consists  of  an 
understanding  of  the  relations  existing  bet-ween  certain  ideas. 

One  thing  more  must  be  made  clear.  When  one  of  these  re- 
lations is  perceived  by  the  mind  and  put  into  words,  it  appears  in 
the  form  of.  a  statement.  In  the  first  example,  where  the  relation 
is  simple,  there  is  a  single  statement,  "Birds  are  flying."  In  the 
second,  there  are  two  statements:  — 

(1)  Charms  strike  the  sight. 

(2)  Merit  wins  the  soul. 


THE  SENTENCE  113 

In  the  following  sentence  there  are  five  statements :  — 

Though  I  would  not  willingly  part  with  such  scraps  of  science,  I  do 
not  set  the  same  store  by  them  as  by  certain  other  odds  and  ends  that 
I  came  by  in  the  open  street  while  I  was  playing  truant. 

The  statements  are :  — 

(1)  I  would  not  willingly  part  with  such  scraps  of  science. 

(2)  I  do  not  set  the  same  store  by  them. 

(3)  I  set  more  store  by  certain  odds  and  ends. 

(4)  I  came  by  them  in  the  open  street. 

(5)  I  was  playing  truant  at  the  time. 

More  will  be  said  presently  about  the  methods  of  combining  these 
statements  into  a  sentence  and  the  changes  that  are  thereby  neces- 
sitated in  the  expression.  At  present,  attention  is  called  only  to 
the  fact  that  the  sentences  are  made  up  of  separate  statements,  and 
that  these  statements  each  show  a  relation  between  certain  ideas. 
Now  we  are  ready  to  go  back  to  the  question  of  Unity.  A 
sentence  possesses  unity  if  it  contains  only  one  thought,  and  if 
this  thought  is  complete.  We  must  consider  for  a  while  the  means 
by  which  a  sentence  may  be  so  made  that  it  shall  contain  one 
thought,  and  only  one.  We  shall  begin  with  sentences  which 
express  a  single  relation  and  hence  contain  but  one  statement. 
Such  are  called  Simple  Sentences. 

A  man  struck  the  door. 

This  is  a  simple  sentence  containing  a  single  statement  which  ex- 
presses a  relation  between  the  ideas  "man"  and  "door."  Pre- 
cisely what  is  this  relation  is  indicated  by  the  verb  "struck." 
Now,  if  I  say  — 

A  short,  stout  man  angrily  struck  the  heavy  door  with  his  cane,  — 

I  still  have  one  statement  expressing  a  single  relation  between 
ideas.  But  I  have  modified  these  ideas  by  means  of  words  and 
phrases.  Your  idea  of  a  "short,  stout  man"  is  different,  doubtless, 
from  your  idea  "man";  but  it  is  still  a  single  idea.  "Heavy 

i 


II4  ENGLISH  COMPOSITION 

door"  is  a  different  idea  from  "door";  "struck  angrily  with  his 
cane"  is  decidedly  different  from  "struck."  In  this  sentence, 
then,  the  ideas  are  different  from  those  in  the  first,  the  relation 
between  them  is  different ;  but  the  statement  by  which  the  relation 
is  made  known  in  words  is  still  single;  the  sentence  is  still  a  simple 
sentence,  and  it  possesses  unity. 

Simple  sentences  may  always  be  expanded  in  this  way  by  the 
use  of  words  and  phrases  as  modifiers.  There  is  only  one  principle 
to  be  observed  in  order  to  insure  unity.  It  is  this:  the  words 
and  phrases  used  to  qualify  the  ideas  in  the  sentence  must  really 
be  necessary  or  helpful  in  presenting  the  ideas  exactly  as  they  are 
to  be  understood  in  the  connection  in  which  they  occur.  In  the 
example  used,  the  adjectives  "  short "  and  "  stout "  are  to  be  re- 
garded as  necessary  to  identify  the  particular  man  in  question.  The 
adverbial  expressions  "heavily"  and  "with  his  cane"  make  clear 
just  how  he  struck  the  door.  Unity  is  violated  when  such  qualify- 
ing expressions  are  irrelevant  to  the  thought  of  the  sentence.  In 
the  following  sentence,  the  words  in  italics  violate  unity  because 
they  are  wholly  unnecessary  to  a  clear  understanding  of  the  ideas 
to  which  they  are  connected. 

A  short,  stout  man,  fifty  years  old  and  a  lineal  descendant  of  John 
Alden,  angrily  struck  the  heavy  door,  made,  by  the  way,  by  one  James 
Cooper,  a  carpenter  of  Hatnden,  with  his  cane. 

Errors  of  this  sort  are  so  obvious  that  they  are  rare,  even  with 
inexperienced  writers.  Simple  sentences,  as  a  rule,  give  little 
trouble  in  the  matter  of  unity.  The  principle,  once  understood, 
is  easy  of  application. 

Pass  now  to  sentences  which  are  to  contain  more  than  one  state- 
ment. The  question  for  you  to  consider  is:  How  may  the  state- 
ments be  combined  so  as  to  express  but  one  thought  ?  There  are 
two  chief  ways,  according  as  the  statements  are  of  equal  or  of  un- 
equal rank  or  importance.  If  they  are  of  equal  value,  they  are  said 
to  be  co-ordinate.  If  one  of  the  statements  outweighs  the  others  in 
importance,  it  is  called  the  main  or  independent  statement,  and  to 
it  the  others  are  all  subordinate.  If  the  statements  are  of  equal 
rank,  the  resultant  sentence  is  said  to  be  Compound;  if  of  unequal 
rank,  Complex. 


THE  SENTENCE  115 

Compound  sentences  in  their  construction  require  especial  skill. 
How  is  it  possible  for  two  or  more  statements  of  equal  importance 
to  be  combined  in  such  a  way  as  to  express  one,  and  only  one, 
complete  thought?  There  are  eight  well-defined  relations  which 
such  statements  may  bear  to  one  another.  The  statements  may 
be:  — 

(1)  In  the  same  line  of  thought,  the  second  adding  to  the  first, 
the  third  to  the  second,  and  so  on.     The  conjunction  which  in- 
dicates this  relation  is  and. 

The  night  was  dark,  and  there  was  a  chill  of  snow  in  the  air. 

Here  there  are  two  statements,  one  about  the  darkness  of  the 
night,  the  other  about  its  chilliness.  These  are  regarded  as  co- 
ordinate, and  unite  to  make  up  one  complete  thought  about  the 
night.  Of  course,  this  sentence  might  have  been  written,  ''The 
night  was  dark  and  chilly."  The  thought  in  such  a  case  would 
have  been  the  same,  but  the  sentence  would  have  been  simple,  as 
it  would  have  contained  but  one  statement.  Compound  sentences 
can  usually  —  not  always  —  be  condensed  in  this  manner  into 
simple  sentences;  and  this  is  a  sure  test  of  their  unity. 

(2)  The  statements  may  be  in  contrast  to  each  other;   the  con- 
junctions in  this  case  are  but,  yet,  nevertheless. 

Knowledge  comes,  but  wisdom  lingers. 

(3)  They  may  be  in  alternation,  a  relation  which  is  expressed 
by  or  and  nor. 

Either  the  principle  is  wrong,  or  there  is  something  amiss  with  its 
application. 

(4)  One  of  two  statements  may  be  a  consequence  of,  or  inference 
from,  the  other;  the  conjunctions  here  are  hence,  therefore,  etc. 

Wisdom  is  the  principal  thing,  therefore  get  wisdom. 

(5)  Occasionally,  the  second  of  two  co-ordinate  statements  gives 
a  reason,  not  for  the  truth  of  the  preceding  statement,  but  for 
the  speaker's  knowledge  of  its  truth. 

It  will  rain,  for  the  barometer  is  falling. 


Il6  ENGLISH  COMPOSITION 

This  usage  is  not  to  be  confounded  with  subordinate  causal  clauses, 
the  use  of  which  will  be  mentioned  later. 

In  all  these  cases  the  conjunctions  are  often  omitted.  The 
fact  that  the  statements  are  written  together  in  one  sentence  shows 
(in  such  cases)  that  they  are  to  be  regarded  as  component  parts 
of  one  single  thought ;  and  the  particular  relation  the  statements 
bear  to  each  other  is  made  clear  by  their  sense.  You  can  readily 
determine,  for  example,  what  relation  the  co-ordinate  statements 
bear  to  each  other  in  each  of  the  following  sentences :  — 

You  cannot  run  away  from  a  weakness;  you  must  sometime  fight  it 
out  or  perish.  . 

The  sun  was  slowly  setting;  darkness  gradually  shut  down  upon  us. 

Water  expands  in  freezing ;  often  in  the  winter  season  pitchers  filled 
with  it  burst. 

(6)  Two  or  more  statements  are  sometimes  co-ordinated  with 
or  without  the  aid  of  a  conjunction,  when  they  repeat  the  same 
thought. 

A  young  man  feels  himself  one  too  many  in  the  world ;  his  is  a  pain- 
ful situation;  he  has  no  calling;  no  obvious  utility;  no  ties  but  to  his 
parents. 

(7)  Similarly,  a  statement  and  an  example  are  sometimes  co- 
ordinated. 

Places  small  and  uninteresting  in  themselves  often  have  greatness 
thrust  upon  them;  Waterloo  is  known  in  history  only  because  a  great 
battle  was  fought  near  it. 

(8)  There  is  one  other  type  of  compound  sentences.      Some- 
times a  number  of  details  are  massed  together  so  as  to  give  an 
impression  of  unity. 

In  one  corner  of  the  room  stood  an  old-fashioned  bedstead ;  in 
another,  a  rickety  washstand;  the  walls  were  bare  and  unpapered; 
there  was  no  carpet  on  the  floor. 

Now  there  are  three  common  faults  against  unity  in  compound 
sentences. 


THE  SENTENCE  117 

(1)  In  the  first  place,  statements  are  often  made  co-ordinate, 
when  in  reality  they  are  not  of  equal  importance ;   as, 

It  began  to  rain,  and  we  started  home. 

This  is  one  of  the  commonest  of  errors.  For  many  writers  there 
is  only  one  conjunction,  the  useful  and.  This  word  is  brutally 
overworked ;  it  is  tortured  from  its  true  meaning  and  made  to  do 
duty  for  all  other  words  of  the  same  part  of  speech.  This  is  owing 
either  to  a  limited  vocabulary  at  the  writer's  command,  or  perhaps 
even  more  to  slovenly  carelessness.  Statements  are  strung  to- 
gether with  ands,  on  the  same  principle  as  that  by  which  a  railroad 
crew  make  up  a  train.  The  cars  are  loaded  with  different  cargoes ; 
some  bear  grain,  some  coal,  some  furniture,  some  live  stock.  Some 
of  the  loads  are  worth  a  few  hundred  dollars,  others  are  worth 
several  thousands.  The  material  or  the  value  has  nothing  to  do 
with  their  connection;  they  are  coupled  together  solely  because 
they  are  all  going  in  the  same  direction.  Such  is  the  method  of 
the  careless  writer.  Disregarding  the  relative  value  of  his  state- 
ments and  their  contents,  he  joins  them  all  by  ands,  as  the  quickest 
way  of  getting  to  his  destination.  The  result  is  that  he  writes  like 
this:  — 

It  began  to  rain  and  we  started  home  and  it  soon  grew  dark  and  so 
we  lost  our  way. 

The  trouble  is  that  these  statements  are  not  all  of  equal  rank,  so 
that  when  united  by  ands  they  do  not  form  one  thought,  but  several, 
and  hence  violate  unity. 

(2)  It  often  happens  that,  though  the  statements  are  really 
co-ordinate,  the  writer  fails  to  bring  out  by  the  use  of  proper  con- 
junctions just  what  relation  the  statements  have  to  one  another. 
Here  again  it  is  the  and  that  makes  the  chief  trouble.     "John  went 
to  school  and  Peter  stayed  at  home"  isacommonbut  incorrect  way 
of  saying  "John  went  to  school  but  Peter  stayed  at  home."    You 
should  notice  carefully  whether  your  statements  are  in  the  same 
line  of  thought,  in  contrast,  or  in  alternation ;  whether  one  state- 
ment is  a  consequence  of  another,  or  gives  a  reason  for  it,  or  repeats 


ug  ENGLISH  COMPOSITION 

its  thought,  or  furnishes  an  example.  You  should  then  connect 
the  statements  in  such  a  manner  as  to  make  their  relation  clear. 
Important  as  it  is  that  you  should  mind  your  p's  and  <7's,  it  is  even 
more  important  that  you  watch  your  buts  and  ands. 

(3)  Lastly,  unity  is  violated  in  a  compound  sentence  when  the 
statements,  although  of  equal  importance,  do  not  unite  to  make 
up  one  thought.  They  have  not  enough  in  common  to  make  them 
fuse  together;  they  should  in  such  cases  be  written  as  separate 
sentences.  This  error  is  more  obvious,  and  for  that  reason,  per- 
haps, less  common  than  the  others.  Sometimes,  however,  we  see 
sentences  like  this :  — 

Julius  Caesar  was  the  greatest  emperor  of  Rome,  but  Athens  is  the 
chief  city  of  Greece. 

To  avoid  these  faults,  and  to  maintain  uriity  in  compound  sen- 
tences, three  directions  must  be  observed :  Be  sure  your  statements 
are  of  equal  importance.  Be  sure  you  use  the  proper  co-ordinating 
word  between  the  statements.  Be  sure  they  really  do  unite  to  form 
one  and  only  one  complete  thought.  And  in  addition  a  timely 
warning  might  be  given.  Since  compound  sentences  are  so  open 
to  abuse,  since  the  and  is  so  unruly,  it  is  well,  if  you  find  you  have 
been  making  most  of  your  sentences  compound,  hereafter  to  use 
compound  sentences  more  sparingly. 

The  other  way  in  which  two  or  more  statements  may.be  com- 
bined into  one  sentence  is  by  means  of  subordination.  This 
type  of  sentence  is  called  Complex.  One  statement  is  regarded  as 
more  important  than  the  others  and  is  therefore  called  the  main  or 
independent  clause.  The  other  statements  are  joined  to  this  by 
conjunctions  in  such  a  way  as  to  show  they  are  dependent  on  it. 
They  receive  their  identity  only  from  their  thought-relation  to 
the  main  clause.  Their  existence  in  the  sentence  is  justified  only 
by  the  fact  that  they  serve  the  independent  clause  in  some  menial 
capacity:  they  are  the  valets,  the  footmen,  the  men  of  all  work. 
They  have  each  their  own  particular  task  to  do,  and,  acknowl- 
edging the  authority  of  one  head,  they  together  make  up  a  well- 
ordered  household.  This  matter  of  subordination  is  so  important 
that,  if  you  once  master  it  thoroughly,  it  is  hardly  too  much  to  say 


THE  SENTENCE  119 

that  you  will  be  in  a  position  to  battle  successfully  with  most  of 
the  dangers  that  beset  sentence-writing. 

Perhaps,  if  you  have  never  looked  into  the  subject,  it  has  never 
occurred  to  you  that  complex  sentences  are  really  made  up  of 
separate  statements.  In  compound  sentences,  the  statements 
retain  their  individuality.  They  are  easily  detached,  and  by  a 
simple  change  of  punctuation  may  usually  be  written  themselves 
as  sentences,  as  in  this  example :  — 

An  aim  in  life  is  the  only  fortune  worth  the  finding;  and  it  is  not  to 
be  found  in  foreign  lands,  but  in  the  heart  itself. 

Changing  the  semicolon  to  a  period,  omitting  "and,"  and  writing 
"it"  with  a  capital  letter,  we  have  two  sentences:  — 

An  aim  in  life  is  the  only  fortune  worth  the  finding.  It  is  not  to  be 
found  in  foreign  lands,  but  in  the  heart  itself. 

In  complex  sentences,  however,  all  the  statements  except  the  inde- 
pendent clause,  owing  to  the  fact  of  their  subordination,  lose  their 
individuality  and  cannot  be  detached  and  written  as  distinct 
sentences  without  some  change  in  wording. 

It  is  not  strange,  therefore,  that  our  polite  literature,  when  it  revived 
with  the  revival  of  the  old  civil  and  ecclesiastical  polity,  should  have  been 
profoundly  immoral. 

There  are  three  statements  in  this  sentence,  as  follows :  — 

(1)  Our  polite  literature  revived  with  the  revival  of  the  old  civil  and 
ecclesiastical  polity. 

(2)  It  would  naturally  in  this  case  have  been  immoral. 

(3)  The  result  is  therefore  not  strange. 

For  a  full  appreciation  of  this  point  it  is  necessary  that  you 
exercise  your  ingenuity  in  disentangling  the  several  statements  in 
the  sentences  given  in  the  Appendix,  pages  367-372. 

Now  having 'seen  that  complex  sentences  are  made  up  of  distinct 
statements,  you  are  next  to  consider  the  different  subordinate 
functions  which  the  statements  may  perform.  You  learned  long 
ago  in  grammar  school  —  so  long  ago  that  you  have  probably 


I20  ENGLISH  COMPOSITION 

forgotten  —  that  subordinate  clauses  perform  the  functions  of 
nouns,  adjectives,  and  adverbs. 

Noun  clauses  are  either  (i)  quotations,  or  (2)  questions.  In 
either  case  they  may  be  direct  or  indirect.  An  example  of  each  is 
given  here : — 

(1)  Quotation  direct:  "Don't  give  up  the  ship,"  said  Captain  Lawrence. 
Quotation  indirect:  Izaak  Walton  says  that  anglers,  like  poets,  are 

born,  not  made. 

(2)  Question  direct:  The  problem —  What  shall  we  do  next?  —  now 
confronts  us. 

Question  indirect:  Much  depends  on  when  and  where  you  read  a  book. 

Noun  clauses  can  be  used  in  all  constructions  the  same  as  simple 
nouns.  What  these  are,  your  knowledge  of  English  grammar  must 
tell  you.  In  the  first  sentence  of  the  examples  above,  the  noun 
clause  is  used  as  subject  of  the  verb ;  in  the  second,  as  predicate 
substantive;  in  the  third,  as  an  appositive  with  another  noun; 
in  the  fourth,  as  object  of  a  preposition. 

Adjective  clauses,  like  other  adjectives,  qualify,  or  depend  on, 
nouns  or  pronouns.  They  are  always  relative  clauses  introduced 
by  who,  which,  that,  or  what,  or  words  which  are  equivalents 
of  these  relative  pronouns  -f-  prepositions ;  as,  where  =  in  which, 
when  =  at  which,  etc. 

The  man  who  just  struck  out  is  the  best  batter  on  the  team. 
The  book  is  not  in  the  place  where  I  left  it. 

Adverb  clauses  depend  on  verbs,  adjectives,  and  adverbs.  As 
they  express  a  large  number  of  subordinate  relations,  they  require 
special  attention.  Following  is  an  enumeration  of  these  relations, 
with  an  example  of  each. 

(1)  Time. 

I  shall  go,  when  I  get  ready. 

(2)  Place. 

Go  where  glory  waits  thee. 

(3)  Degree,  or  Comparison. 

New  Haven  is  farther  north  than  New  York  is. 


THE  SENTENCE  121 

(4)  Manner. 

He  went  at  his  problems  much  as  an  angry  bull  goes  at  a  red  rag. 

(5)  Cause,  or  Reason. 

Cream  rises  to  the  surface  because  it  is  lighter  than  milk. 

(6)  Condition. 

If  a  person  cannot  be  happy  without  remaining  idle,  idle  he  should 
remain. 

(7)  Purpose,  or  Result. 

Workingmen  combine  into  unions  in  order  that  they  may  the  better 
protect  their  rights. 

(8)  Concession. 

Though  he  slay  me,  yet  will  I  trust  in  him. 

You  should  study  these  various  relations  until  you  are  perfectly 
familiar  with  them.  Think  of  as  many  conjunctions  as  possible 
to  indicate  the  same  relation.  See  the  exercise  on  page  367  of  the 
Appendix. 

Having  in  mind  a  pretty  clear  conception  of  the  subordinate 
functions  that  statements  may  bear  in  a  sentence,  you  are  now 
ready  to  consider  how  they  may  be  joined  so  as  to  maintain  unity. 

First  of  all  you  must  determine  what  is  the  chief  component 
of  the  thought  you  are  to  express;  what,  in  other  words,  you  want* 
your  sentence  chiefly  to  convey  to  your  reader.  Make  this,  then, 
your  main  or  independent  clause.  If  there  are  subordinate  state- 
ments which  seem  to  belong  to  this,  decide  carefully  upon  the 
precise  kind  and  exact  shade  of  subordination.  Then  make  this 
relation  unmistakable  by  the  use  of  proper  conjunctions  and  con- 
nective words.  Suppose,  for  example,  you  had  to  express  a  thought, 
whose  component  idea-relations,  put  in  the  form  of  statements, 
are  as  follows :  — 

My  brother  was  struck  down  by  an  automobile. 
A  stranger  was  standing  near. 
The  stranger  picked  my  brother  up. 

You  decide  that  the  fact  that  the  stranger  picked  my  brother  up 
is  the  most  important.  Next,  you  see  that  the  first  statement, 


I22  ENGLISH  COMPOSITION 

"My  brother  was  struck  down  by  an  automobile,"  bears  some 
relation  to  the  action  indicated  by  the  verb  "picked  up."  You 
determine  this  relation  to  be  one  of  time;  and  you  know  that 
time  clauses  are  introduced  by  such  conjunctions  as  when,  while, 
until,  etc.  Lastly,  you  see  that  the  statement  "A  stranger  was 
standing  near,"  is  there  solely  to  mark  out  this  same  stranger  more 
plainly.  It  modifies,  then,  the  noun,  "  stranger,"  and  should  be 
made  into  a  relative  clause.  You  finally  "connect  up"  your  sen- 
tence into  a  unit  as  follows :  — 

When  my  brother  was  struck  down  by  an  automobile,  a  stranger, 
who  was  standing  near,  picked  him  up.  (For  other  examples,  page  372 .) 

Of  course,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  you  do  not  go  through  such  a 
lengthy  process  for  every  sentence  you  write;  but  you  do  un- 
doubtedly perform  all  these  operations  unconsciously  in  your  mind 
in  an  abbreviated  form  as  you  write.  If  now  you  go  one  step 
farther  and  perform  them  consciously  in  all  cases  of  long  and  com- 
plicated sentences,  and  do  it  with  little  conscious  effort,  you  will 
learn  to  avoid  many  of  the  offenses  against  unity.  For,  in  forcing 
yourself  to  discover  the  exact  relation  each  statement  bears  to  the 
thought  of  the  sentence,  you  will  be  able  to  cast  out  those  state- 
ments which  bear  no  necessary  relation  at  all.  To  do  this  is  to 
preserve  unity. 

See  examples  for  practice,  page  372   of  the  Appendix. 

A  few  observations  will  show  in  what  the  chief  violations  of  unity 
in  complex  sentences  consist.  Noun  clauses  give  little  trouble 
in  this  respect  and  need  not  be  considered  here.  Relative  clauses, 
however,  are  likely  to  cause  trouble  and  must  be  carefully  watched. 
Be  sure  first  that  the  statement  in  a  relative  clause  is  really  apart  of 
the  idea  suggested  by  the  word  it  modifies ;  be  sure,  second,  that  it 
is  a  necessary  part  of  the  idea  in  the  particular  connection  in  which 
it  occurs.  This  is  precisely  similar  to  the  caution  given  in  regard 
to  the  unity  of  the  simple  sentence.  In  this  case  the  modifiers  are 
clauses  instead  of  words  and  phrases ;  but  the  same  rule  holds  good. 

The  Japanese,  in  a  recent  war,  overwhelmingly  defeated  the  Russians 
who  are  connoisseurs  cf  tea  and  tobacco. 


THE  SENTENCE 


I23 


The  statement  in  the  relative  clause  in  this  sentence  may,  or 
may  not,  be  considered  as  really  a  part  of  our  idea  of  the  Russians ; 
but  as  it  is  not  a  necessary  part  of  the  idea  in  connection  with  their 
defeat  by  the  Japanese,  it  violates  unity.  The  same  fault  occurs 
in  the  following  sentences :  — 

The  burglar  was  killed  with  an  ancient  shot-gun,  which  had  formerly 
been  my  uncle's,  who  is  now  on  a  voyage  in  the  Pacific. 

The  Amazon  is  a  large  river  in  Brazil,  where  the  nuts  come  from. 

A  similar  mistake  is  often  committed.  Frequently  a  statement 
is  subordinated  in  a  relative  clause,  whereas  in  reality  it  is  co- 
ordinate with  a  preceding  statement. 

He  supported  the  frightened  girl  to  the  door,  followed  by  a  servant, 
with  whose  assistance  he  helped  her  down  the  steps. 

The  clause  beginning  with  "whose"  is  not  needed  to  complete 
our  conception  of  the  servant,  but  is  really  an  additional  statement 
in  the  same  line  of  thought  as  the  preceding.  It  might  better  be 
expressed  thus,  "...  and  with  the  servant's  assistance,"  etc.  Or, 
still  better,  the  sentence  might  read,  "He  supported  the  frightened 
girl  to  the  door,  and,  with  the  assistance  of  a  servant  who  had 
followed,  helped  her  down  the  steps." 

Sometimes,  again,  a  statement  is  subjoined  in  a  relative  clause, 
when  it  does  not  belong  to  the  thought  of  the  sentence  in  any 
relation  at  all;  as, 

I  parted  from  her  at  the  door,  at  which  I  again  presented  myself  at 
seven. 

In  the  following  sentences,  however,  the  relative  clauses  are 
necessary,  or  at  least  helpful,  in  identifying  the  persons  indicated 
by  the  words  they  modify. 

The  man  whom  you  mention  is  my  uncle. 

The  perfect  historian  is  he  in  whose  work  the  character  and  spirit  of 
an  age  is  exhibited  in  miniature. 

All  this  world,  and  all  the  glory  of  it,  were  at  once  offered  to  a  young 
man,  to  whom  nature  had  given  violent  passions,  and  whom  education 
had  never  taught  to  control  them. 


I24  ENGLISH  COMPOSITION 

A  similar  principle  applies  in  the  construction  of  adverb  clauses 
Be  sure  not  only  that  they  belong  to  the  ideas  to  which  they  are 
attached,  but  also  that  they  aid  materially  in  making  clear  a  full 
understanding  of  these  ideas  in  the  connection  in  which  they  occur. 
Examples  need  not  be  given,  as  by  this  time  the  principle  should 
be  well  in  mind.  However,  a  further  caution  is  necessary.  Make 
clear  the  kind  of  relation  your  adverb  clause  sustains  to  the  thought 
of  the  sentence.  Be  sure  that  the  conjunctions  bring  out  the  exact 
shade  of  meaning  that  you  have  in  mind.  If  this  is  not  done, 
violations  of  unity  often  result.  It  is  a  fault  similar  to  that  pointed 
out  in  the  construction  of  compound  sentences,  when  and  is  made 
to  do  the  duty  of  but.  In  complex  sentences  there  is  more  danger 
of  this  sort  of  error.  The  subordinate  relations  are  so  many,  and 
the  shades  of  meaning  so  fine,  that  you  must  exercise  your  full 
powers  of  discrimination.  Don't  subjoin  a  statement  in  a  con- 
cessive relation,  when  it  really  denotes  condition.  Don't  confuse 
time  and  cause.  And  don't  subjoin  a  statement  in  an  adverb  clause, 
when  it  should  be  co-ordinated. 

The  conjunction  while  is  a  chief  offender  in  this  respect.  While 
is  properly  used  to  introduce  a  clause  expressing  time.  It  is  at 
least  questionable  whether  it  ever  means  though;  and  it  certainly 
never  means  but. 

While  mother  is  far  from  well,  she  would  be  able  to  endure  a  trip  to 
New  York. 

The  first  statement  in  this  sentence  does  not,  as  the  conjunction 
while  leads  us  to  expect,  bear  a  time-relation  to  the  second.  Our 
ideas  of  mother's  sickness  and  her  ability  to  go  to  New  York  do 
not  unite  by  a  time-relation  to  form  one  thought.  They  do,  how- 
ever, so  unite  in  a  concessive  relation.  She  is  able  to  go  to  New 
York  in  spite  of  her  sickness.  The  sentence  should  read,  then, 

Though  mother  is  far  from  well,  she  would  be  able  to  endure  a  trip 
to  New  York. 

It  is  best  to  avoid  this  use  of  while  in  the  sense  of  though.1  In 
the  following  sentence,  the  relation  between  the  statements  is  not 
one  of  time,  but  of  contrast. 

1  Many  good  writers,  it  is  true,  use  while  in  the  sense  of  though.  But 
such  usage  lacks  precision.  Since  there  are  two  good  conjunctions,  which 


THE  SENTENCE 


125 


Mr.  Hammond  was  there  in  all  his  glory,  while  Mrs.  Hammond  was 
unable  to  be  present. 

While  in  this  case  should  give  way  to  but. 

•     When,  in  like  manner,  is  often  used  in  the  place  of  whereupon; 
as, 

He  stood  for  a  moment  smiling;  when  Sharkey  up  with  a  fist  and 
obliterated  the  smile. 

She  joyfully  took  and  read  the  letter;  when  her  eyes  immediately 
suffused  with  tears. 

Some  practical  aid  in  the  building  of  unified  sentences  may  be 
had  from  a  thorough  understanding  of  two  important  types  of 
sentence  —  the  periodic,  and  the  loose.  The  periodic  sentence  is 
so  constructed  that  the  meaning  is  incomplete  until  the  end.  In 
the  loose  type,  however,  there  is  more  than  one  place  at  which 
the  sentence  might  end  and  still  make  sense.  The  difference  be- 
tween these  two  types  is  shown  by  the  following  table :  — 

LOOSE  PERIODIC 

We  came  to  our  journey's  end,          At  last,  with  no   small   diffi- 

at  last,  with  no  small  difficulty,  culty,  and  after  much  fatigue,  we 

after  much  fatigue,  through  deep  came,  through  deep  roads  and  bad 

roads,  and  bad  weather.  weather,  to  our  journey's  end. 

Talkative  women  listen,  when  When  there's   anything  worth 

there's  anything  worth  hearing.  hearing,  talkative  women  listen. 

He   likes   music,    and   art   as          He  likes  both  music  and  art. 
well. 

The    principle    is    wrong,    or          Either  the  principle  is  wrong, 

else   there    is    something    amiss  or  there  is  something  amiss  with 

with  its  application.  its  application. 

I  can't  go,  unless  I  get  some  Unless   I    get  some  money,  I 

money.  can't  go. 

By  its  very  nature  the  periodic  sentence  is  apt  to  possess  unity. 
As  the  sense  is  to  be  incomplete  until  the  end,  it  must  follow  that 
the  writer  knows,  before  he  begins  to  write,  just  what  he  is  going 
to  say.  This  makes  it  necessary  for  him  to  test  his  ideas  rigidly 

indicate  the  concessive  relation,  namely   though    and    although,    what    is 
the  need  of  using  while,  a  temporal  conjunctive,  in  this  slipshod  manner? 


I26  ENGLISH  COMPOSITION 

to  see  if  they  belong  together.  In  the  case  of  a  loose  sentence, 
on  the  other  hand,  the  writer  usually  does  not  know  just  how  he 
is  going  to  end.  He  first  writes  one  statement,  then  adds  other 
statements  or  ideas,  as  they  seem  to1  be  required.  Herein  lies 
the  danger.  By  the  laws  of  suggestion,  one  thing  leads  to  another, 
until,  if  a  close  watch  is  not  kept,  the  thought  goes  astray.  Phrase 
after  phrase,  clause  after  clause,  the  words  move  on,  until  the 
original  idea  is  forgotten.  This  is  the  fault  in  the  following  sen- 
tences :  — 

I  doubt  very  much  if  any  one  has  a  harder  day  than  this  one,  especially 
as  it  comes  on  Monday,  and  Sunday  is  not  a  good  day  for  studying,  even 
if  you  have  no  religious  scruples  concerning  it. 

The  many  inventions  in  small  arms,  field  guns,  and  everything 
pertaining  to  war,  are  very  noticeable  features  of  the  last  ten  years  and 
so  by  enumerating  in  this  manner,  one  could  bring  to  mind  a  great  num- 
ber of  inventions,  without  describing  any  one  in  particular,  but  if  one 
should  attempt  to  give  even  a  brief  description  of  a  few  already  enumer- 
ated, it  would  be  a  long  and  tedious  task. 

Loose  sentences,  of  course,  are  not  bad  necessarily.  In  most 
good  writers  they  probably  outnumber  the  periodic.  When 
properly  unified,  they  promote  ease,  and  do  away  with  formality 
and  pompousness.  The  following  paragraph  from  James  Bryce 
consists  of  two  loose  sentences  properly  constructed :  — 

There  are  also  points  of  construction  on  which  every  court,  following 
a  well-established  practice,  will  refuse  to  decide,  because  they  are  deemed 
to  be  of  "  a  purely  political  nature,"  a  vague  description,  but  one  which 
could  be  made  more  specific  only  by  an  enumeration  of  the  cases  which 
have  settled  the  practice.  These  points  are  accordingly  left  to  the  dis- 
cretion of  the  executive  and  legislative  powers,  each  of  which  forms  its 
view  as  to  the  matters  falling  within  its  sphere,  and  in  acting  on  that 
view  is  entitled  to  the  obedience  of  the  citizens  and  of  the  States  also. 

But  inasmuch  as  your  habit  heretofore  has  probably  been  to 
write  loose  sentences  almost  exclusively,  arid  inasmuch  as  such 
sentences  are  so  liable  to  abuse,  you  should  cultivate  the  habit,  for 
a  while,  of  making  as  many  as  possible  of  your  sentences  periodic. 
Thereby  you  will  undoubtedly  decrease  the  number  of  your  offenses 
against  unity. 


THE  SENTENCE  127 

It  was  stated  some  pages  back  that,  for  a  sentence  to  possess  unity, 
it  must  express  only  one  thought,  and  that  this  thought  must  be 
complete.  You  have  seen  what  is  meant  by  a  thought,  and  how 
a  sentence  must  be  constructed  to  express  one  thought,  and  only 
one.  You  should  now  see  that  this  thought  must  be  complete  — 
not  a  fraction.  Statements  are  sometimes  written  as  complete 
sentences,  when,  in  reality,  they  are  but  co-ordinate  clauses  of  one 
compound  sentence.  The  fault  is  worse  when  clauses  so  written 
are  subordinate.  This  practice  violates  unity  because  it  leaves  the 
thought  incomplete.  If  the  foregoing  remarks  on  sentence- 
structure  have  been  taken  to  heart,  this  fault  should  not  now  trouble 
you.  The  fault  is  illustrated  herewith :  — 

He  tried  to  appear  unconcerned.     But  he  couldn't. 

He  told  me  that  the  course  covered  three  years.  And  he  assured  me 
that  it  probably  would  not  be  hard  work. 

At  the  beginning  of  the  nineteenth  century,  inventions  were  few  and 
far  between.  That  is,  inventions  of  great  importance. 

The  coming  of  steam  revolutionized  travel,  as  it  made  possible  the 
crossing  of  the  ocean  in  the  least  possible  time.  Reducing  the  time  from 
months  to  days. 

On  Thursdays  I  have  an  eight  o'clock  recitation.  While  on  Fridays 
I  have  nothing  till  ten. 

The  trouble  here  seems  to  be  chiefly  one  of  punctuation.  At 
any  rate,  each  of  the  examples  above  may  be  corrected  by  pointing 
the  sentences ,  properly.  Even  so,  however,  a  proper  sense  of 
unity  should  have  prevented  the  writer  from  marking  off  as  com- 
plete sentences  such  phrases  and  clauses  as  are  but  fragments  of 
thought. 

On  rare  occasions,  fragmentary  sentences  are  used  by  good 
writers.  Such  groups  of  words  are  generally  emphatic,  as  the 
license  of  their  .form  calls  special  attention  to  their  matter. 
Carlyle  is  over-fond  of  this  device,  and  is  in  no  wise  to  be  imitated. 
Stevenson  employs  it  sometimes.  For  example,  he  ends  a  certain 
paragraph  with  the  assertion  that  a  certain  characteristic  "stamps 
the  man  who  is  well  armoured  for  this  world."  The  next  para- 
graph begins  thus:  "And  not  only  well  armoured  for  himself, 
but  a  good  friend  and  a  good  citizen  to  boot."  Nevertheless, 


I2g  ENGLISH  COMPOSITION 

beyond  an  occasional  expression  like  "But  enough  of  this,"  or 
"To  take  up  the  next  point,"  writers  without  an  established  literary 
reputation  should  avoid  this  kind  of  writing.1 

Your  sentence,  then,  must  contain  one  complete  thought.  You 
have  seen,  after  much  tribulation,  how  you  may  so  construct  a  sen- 
tence that  it  will  conform  with  this  requirement.  This  is  the  first 
thing  necessary  in  order  that  you  may  fulfill  the  purpose  of  good 
writing,  to  put  your  own  mind  into  communication  with  the  minds 
of  others.  But  it  is  not  the  only  thing  needful.  Not  only  must 
you  lighten  the  reader's  work  by  placing  before  him  but  one  thought 
at  a  time ;  you  also  must  express  this  thought  clearly.  The  reader 
must  be  able  to  understand  what  you  say.  It  is  not  enough  that 
he  may,  after  repeated  study,  understand;  it  is  essential  that, 
even  with  but  a  glance,  he  cannot  possibly  misunderstand.  The 
principle  by  which  you  achieve  this  requisite  of  composition  is 
called  the  principle  of  Coherence. 

II.  COHERENCE 

Coherence  means  "sticking  together."  Applied  to  the  con- 
struction of  a  sentence,  it  means  that  the  parts  of  a  sentence  must 
stick  together.  Words,  phrases,  and  clauses  must  be  where  they 
belong.  Each  must  know  its  place  and  keep  its  place.  It  is  your 
business  to  see  that  this  rule  is  observed.  You  may  most  readily 
understand  how  to  perform  this  duty  of  supervision,  if  you  com- 
prehend well  the  chief  respects  in  which  the  rule  is  likely  to  be 
disobeyed.  These  will  now  be  discussed. 

Almost  all  the  offenses  against  Coherence  come  under  one  or 
another  of  the  three  following  categories:  (i)  faulty  reference; 
(2)  faulty  placing  of  modifiers;  (3)  change  in  grammatical  con- 
struction. 

Reference  is  faulty  when  the  writer  fails  to  make  clear  precisely 
to  what  words  certain  other  words  refer.  The  offenders  are 
pronouns  and  participles.  Pronouns  should  be  used  with  pre- 
cision. Personal  pronouns,  demonstratives,  and  relatives  are 
equally  treacherous.  The  general  rule  for  their  use  is  twofold. 
First,  they  should  refer  to  definite  persons,  things,  or  ideas;  that 

*For  miscellaneous  examples  of  violations  of  Unity,  see  Appendix,  p.  374. 


THE  SENTENCE  129 

is,  their  reference  should  not  be  vague.  Second,  they  should 
refer  to  particular  persons,  things,  or  ideas ;  that  is,  their  refer- 
ence should  not  be  ambiguous. 

The  following  group  of  sentences 'illustrates  violations  of  this 
rule  in  its  first  aspect.  The  pronouns  in  each  sentence  refer  not 
to  any  definitely  expressed  antecedent,  but  to  a  notion  conveyed 
by  the  sentence  as  a  whole,  or  implied  by  some  word  in  the  sen- 
tence :  — 

I  went  duck-shooting  yesterday  and  bagged  six  of  them. 

Electricity  is  naturally  regarded  as  the  best  form  of  power  by  the 
students  of  that  department. 

The  horse  was  overloaded  and  then  beaten  because  he  could  not 
draw  it. 

If  I  did  not  have  a  "  two  o'clock,"  I  could  take  plenty  of  time,  which 
would  be  more  pleasant. 

With  the  forefinger  of  his  right  hand  he  successively  touched  those 
of  his  left. 

In  the  first  sentence  above,  them  refers  to  a  noun,  "ducks," 
implied  in  the  word  "duck-shooting."  In  the  third  sentence,  it 
refers  to  the  notion  conveyed  by  the  statement,  "the  horse  was 
overloaded."  Explain  the  faults  in  the  other  sentences. 

In  the  following  sentences  the  rule  is  violated  in  its  second 
aspect.  The  pronouns  here  are  ambiguous :  — 

A  bird  can  see  a  worm  while  it  is  flying. 

If  the  person  who  lost  a  pocketbook  on  Chapel  Street  will  call  at 
132  Wall  Street,  he  can  obtain  it. 

As  the  train  was  waiting,  after  I  bought  my  ticket  I  entered  it. 

The  man's  father  was  killed  and  he  afterwards  fell  in  love  with  Maud. 

A  number  of  fellows  in  my  division  were  making  merry  over  a  bag 
of  peanuts,  and  the  result  was  that  they  were  scattered  all  around  as  they 
were  thrown  at  one  another. 

I  must  go  and  help  Alice  with  the  heifer;  she  is  not  very  quiet  yet 
and  I  see  her  going  out  with  her  pail. 

In  each  of  these  sentences  it  is  not  clear  to  which  of  two  possible 
antecedents  the  pronouns  refer. 
Expressions  quoted  indirectly  are  full  of  pitfalls  of  this  kind. 


I30 


ENGLISH  COMPOSITION 


John  told  my  brother  that  he  might  come  to  see  him  if  he  would  let 
him  know  when  he  would  find  it  most  convenient. 

Harry  Percy  said  to  King  Henry  IV  that  he  behaved  himself  not  to  him 
as  he  should;  for,  he  said,  ne  had  he  been,  he  had  never  been  king  of 
England. 

On  his  way  he  visited  an  old  friend  who  had  asked  him  to  call  upon 
him  on  his  journey  northward.  He  was  overjoyed  to  see  him,  and  he 
sent  for  one  of  his  most  intelligent  workmen  and  told  him  to  consider 
himself  at  his  service,  as  he  himself  could  not  take  him  as  he  wished 
about  the  city. 

An  appropriate  question,  upon  reading  such  sentences,  would  be, 
Who's  who? 

Participles  are  equally  dangerous.  Sometimes,  as  is  the  case 
with  pronouns,  their  reference  is  vague. 

Hastening  up  the  steps,  the  door  opened. 
On  entering  the  room,  the  eye  is  struck  by  a  huge  chandelier. 
After  eating  a  hearty  dinner,  our  carriages  were  brought  to  the  door. 
Lost  in  meditation,   the  minutes  fleeted  past. 

The  sentences  above  illustrate  what  is  called  the  "hanging  parti- 
ciple." There  is  no  one  word  to  which  the  participles  definitely 
refer.  In  each  sentence  except  the  third,  they  refer  presumably  to 
words  in  a  preceding  sentence.  In  the  third,  the  participle  refers 
to  the  antecedent  of  our.  Errors  of  this  sort  are  especially  com- 
mon. Participles  must  be  watched ;  they  cannot  be  trusted  with- 
out strict  surveillance.  Make  your  participles  refer  to  some 
definite  person,  thing,  or  idea.  Moreover,  see  that  they  refer  to 
some  particular  person,  thing,  or  idea.  Make  it  clear  that  they 
modify  one  word,  and  only  one ;  see  that  they  are  not  ambiguous. 

I  observed  that  crystals  were  formed.  Being  in  a  test  tube,  I  could 
watch  them  grow. 

Returning  to  the  room,  she  told  us  to  be  seated. 

The  book  in  question,  which  had  been  my  grandfather's,  being  in 
levant,  brought  a  good  price. 

I  saw  my  old  friend  Johnson  again  by  mere  chance  when  I  was  in 
New  York  recently,  walking  down  Broadway  and  looking  in  at  the  store- 
windows. 

He  wrote  to  the  Secretary  demanding  an  apology. 


THE  SENTENCE  131 

Each  of  the  participles  in  these  sentences  might  possibly  be 
understood  as  referring  to  two  persons  or  things.  Who  or  what 
was  in  the  test  tube?  Who  returned  to  the  room?  Who  or 
what  was  in  levant?  Who  was  walking  down  Broadway?  Who 
demanded  an  apology? 

The  second  main  category  of  offenses  against  Coherence  is  the 
faulty  placing  of  modifiers.  Modifiers  may  be  words,  phrases,  or 
clauses.  As  regards  their  position,  one  rule  covers  the  correct 
usage.  They  should  be  placed  as  closely  as  possible  to  the  words 
they  modify. 

Of  single  words  it  is  perhaps  only  that  is  oftenest  misplaced. 
It  should,  when  possible,  be  placed  immediately  before  the  word 
with  which  it  is  connected.  Otherwise  the  sentence  fails  to  tell 
exactly  what  the  writer  meant,  or  even  sometimes  declares  some- 
thing which  he  decidedly  did  not  mean. 

On  Mondays  I  only  have  one  recitation. 

I  tried  to  borrow  some  money  from  him  and  he  only  lent  me  a  dollar. 

My  two  cousins  only  got  to  the  end;   I  stopped  halfway. 

I  have  only  read  over  one  page  of  the  lesson. 

Not  is  likely  to  cause  the  same  two  kinds  of  incoherence.  The 
first  sentence  below,  for  example,  appears  to  mean  that  all  con- 
victed persons  are  innocent. 

All  convicted  persons  are  not  guilty. 
All  men  are  not  created  equal. 

The  instructor  did  not  say  that  the  work  was  wrong,  but  only  care- 
lessly done. 

The  so-called  "correspondents"  cause  obscurity,  when  they  are 
not  so  placed  as  to  show  what  words  they  connect.  They  are  not 
only  .  .  .  but  also;  either  ...or;  neither  .  .  .  nor;  both  .  .  . 
and;  on  the  one  hand  .  .  .  on  the  other  hand.  For  example:  — 

He  neither  succeeded  in  scholarship  nor  athletics. 

Interest  in  this  matter  should  not  only  be  manifested  by  the  students, 
but  also  by  the  instructors. 

Not  only  does  the  student  save  the  expenses  of  the  extra  year,  which, 
we  must  acknowledge,  amounts  to  a  great  deal  for  some  people,  but  also 
the  energy  devoted  to  studying  and  preparing  lessons. 


I32 


ENGLISH  COMPOSITION 


Other  adverbs  are  sometimes  misplaced :  — 

She  left  the  room  without  almost  knowing  what  she  did. 
We  shall  merely  try  to  point  out  the  leading  errors. 
Harold  was  twice  defeated  and  slain. 
Please  observe  what  I  say  very  carefully. 

Phrases  used  as  modifiers  often  surreptitiously  intrude  where 
they  have  no  business.  Watch  them.  Be  sure  that  they  are 
attached  to  the  words  they  actually  qualify. 

We  saw  the  place  where  Fort  Hale  stood  for  the  first  time  yesterday. 

Pay  highest  amount  punched  to  cashier. 

Our  maid  is  always  boasting  of  her  approaching  marriage  to  the 
housekeeper  and  the  other  servants. 

There  is  a  great  disinclination  to  work  on  the  part  of  the  Seniors. 

We  have  discussed  the  principles  which  will  guide  you  in  writing  good 
paragraphs  in  a  preceding  chapter. 

As  Tom  could  not  dance,  he  was  forced  to  spend  the  time  when  the 
others  were  dancing  in  the  smoking  room. 

My  friend  Dr.  Josiah  Curtis  was  stricken  down  with  chronic  dysentery. 
By  the  use  of  my  Liquid  Food,  five  drops  at  a  time,  he  was  restored  to 
health  and  walked  a  mile  in  ten  days. 

Clauses,  in  the  same  manner,  should  be  put  where  they  belong. 
Relative  clauses,  to  speak  in  the  terms  of  electricity,  are  excellent 
conductors.  When  they  are  placed  too  near  a  word  to  which  they 
do  not  belong,  the  flow  of  thought  leaps  to  them,  and  is  short- 
circuited.  This  is  an  error  similar  to  that  pointed  out  under 
faulty  reference. 

Elizabeth  imprisoned  her  sister  Mary,  who  was  queen  of  England. 

While  I  was  returning,  some  one  entered  the  house,  who,  from  the 
appearance  of  things,  was  a  burglar. 

Students  willingly  follow  a  professor's  instructions  that  they  like,, 

She  had  a  diamond  pin  in  her  hair,  which  was  bought  in  Paris. 

The  President  retained  in  his  cabinet  all  the  men  that  had  served 
under  his  predecessor  that  he  had  perfect  faith  in. 

A  gentleman  sent  his  partner  in  a  foreign  country  that  was  sick  some 
of  my  Liquid  Food. 

We  have  got  a  new  automobile  since  we  had  the  smash-up  in  the  old 
one,  which  nearly  cost  me  my  life. 


THE  SENTENCE  133 

So  with  adverb  clauses.     With  what  verb  does  each  of  these 
clauses  belong? 

We  met  at  a  place  called  Osborne,  as  near  as  I  remember,  thirty  miles 
from  Boston. 

Though  some  of  the  European  rulers  may  be  females,  when  [  they 
are]  spoken  of  altogether,  they  may  be  correctly  classified  under  the  de- 
nomination "kings." 

The  adoption  of  the  triple  turn  in  the  hammer-throw  brought  to  light 
the  imperfections  of  the  old  single-turn  method  which  up  to  that  time 
had  been  in  use,  since  the  triple  turn  required  great  dexterity. 

The  "split  infinitive"  is  to  be  avoided.  Although  a  great  many 
careful  writers  employ  this  construction,  it  is  nearly  always 
awkward  and  for  that  reason  its  use  is  not  to  be  encouraged.  There 
is  something  displeasing  about  such  expressions  as  follow :  — 

He  was  unable  to  successfully  perform  the  experiment. 
Seek  to  assiduously  do  all  your  duties. 

Sometimes  not  only  single  adverbs,  but  even  whole  phrases  are 
interpolated  between  "to"  and  the  infinitive:  — 

All  actors  find  it  tedious  to,  night  after  night,  throughout  a  whole 
season,  act  and  react  the  same  r61es. 

Occasionally  even  a  clause  is  so  placed :  — 

You  will  find  it  difficult  to,  while  you  count  fifty,  hold  your  breath. 

The  third  kind  of  incoherency  to  be  considered  is  that  arising 
from  a  change  of  grammatical  construction.  Stated  positively 
the  rule  is :  Ideas  parallel  in  thought  should  be  parallel  in  expres- 
sion. In  other  words,  keep  the  same  subject  throughout  your 
sentence  (or  co-ordinate  clause  of  a  compound  sentence) ;  or  else 
keep  your  syntax  uniform.  Negatively  and  specifically,  the  cau- 
tions are :  Do  not  link  an  infinitive  with  a  participle ;  a  participle 
or  infinitive  with  a  verb ;  an  active  with  a  passive  voice ;  a  word  or 
phrase  with  a  clause.  Do  not,  for  example,  make  sentences  like 
the  following :  — 

He  was  last  seen  approaching  the  wharf,  and  to  have  a  large  satchel 
in  his  hand. 


134 


ENGLISH  COMPOSITION 


Two  better  men  than  Biglow  and  Jones  could  not  be  found;  the 
former  to  smooth  out  the  work,  and  the  latter  puts  snap  into  the  men. 

We  had  a  general  course  in  Chemistry,  but  spending  most  of  the  time 
on  quantitative  analysis. 

The  morning  is  spent  in  recitations,  but  in  the  afternoon  /  have  time 
for  recreation. 

The  captain  began  to  get  the  men  in  shape  for  the  Princeton  game, 
and  a  shift  was  made  by  him  in  the  line-up. 

He  made  us  promise  to  be  careful,  and  that  we  would  not  go  beyond 
the  limits  of  the  city. 

This  is  a  true  saying,  and  which  is  worthy  of  all  acceptation. 

This  "and  which  construction,"  as  it  is  called,  should  be  noticed 
carefully.  The  error  has  been  variously  explained.  Some 
rhetoricians  regard  it  as  an  attempt  to  make  a  clause  at  once  co- 
ordinate and  subordinate.  Usually,  however,  it  will  be  found  that 
it  is  simply  a  case  of  a  clause  joined  by  a  conjunction  to  a  word 
or  phrase ;  as, 

My  roommate  is  a  studious  fellow  in  his  habits,  and  who  rarely  spends 
his  evenings  out. 

Here  evidently  the  qualifying  adjective  "studious  "  and  the  qualify- 
ing clause  "  who  rarely  spends,"  etc.,  are  similar  ideas  in  the  writer's 
mind ;  he  has  merely  failed  to  make  them  similar  in  grammatical 
construction.1 

Knowing  now  the  kinds  of  incoherence  you  are  most  likely  to 
be  troubled  with,  and  having  in  mind  the  means  whereby  to  avoid 
them,  you  are  in  a  position  to  make  your  sentences  clear.  When 
you  are  able  to  do  this,  you  will  have  accomplished  much;  but 
much  more  is  necessary.  Your  sentences  must  not  only  be  uni- 
fied and  coherent;  they  must  also  be  emphatic. 

III.   EMPHASIS 

The  Emphasis  of  a  sentence  is  generally  the  thing  least  con- 
sidered. Young  writers,  especially,  have  little  care  for  strength, 
force,  and  energy.  As  a  result,  their  thoughts  do  not  always 
properly  impress  the  reader.  The  brain  is  so  busy  when  we  are 

1  For  miscellaneous  examples  of  violation  of  Coherence,  see  Appendix, 
P-  376. 


THE  SENTENCE  135 

reading,  that  we  need  all  the  help  the  writer  can  give  us  in  seizing 
instantly  the  important  points.  Some  of  the  ways  by  which  the 
writer  can  give  this  help  are  now  to  be  considered.  Some  of  these 
are  the  same  as  for  securing  emphasis  in  the  whole  composition ; 
others  apply  to  the  sentence  alone. 

Listening  to  conversation,  the  hearer  is  informed  of  the  proper 
emphasis  by  means  of  the  ear.  When  he  perceives  that  certain 
words  and  phrases  are  uttered  with  especial  stress  of  voice,  he 
knows  at  once  that  the  speaker  regards  these  as  important.  The 
reader,  however,  is  without  this  sure  means  of  guidance.  For  him 
the  functions  of  the  ear  must  be  performed,  as  well  as  may  be,  by 
the  eye.  Emphasis,  since  it  cannot  be  heard  by  him,  must  be 
seen.  The  writer,  therefore,  is  confronted  with  no  small  difficulty. 
How  is  it  possible  to  make  the  important  expressions  emphatic 
to  the  eye? 

There  is  a  fairly  satisfactory  solution  to  the  problem.  Words 
which  in  speaking  are  made  emphatic  by  vocal  stress,  may  in  writ- 
ing be  made  emphatic  by  position.  The  following  discussion 
explains  how  this  may  be  done. 

The  eye  in  reading  a  sentence  is  most  forcibly  struck  by  the 
beginning  and  the  end.  In  these  positions,  therefore,  you  should 
place  the  words  you  wish  to  be  emphasized.  Somewhere  in  the 
interior  you  may  tuck  away  the  subsidiary  ideas.  Unless  you 
follow  this  principle  you  will  cause  the  reader  unnecessary  an- 
noyance. You  will  make  him  rummage  around  for  the  salient 
words,  to  dig,  as  Stevenson  says,  like  a  pig  for  truffles.  The  result 
is  that  the  reader  becomes  wearied;  he  loses  confidence  in  you. 
Remember  that  when  you  write  you  put  yourself  in  the  attitude 
of  a  suppliant;  you  are  asking  a  favor.  The  mere  fact  that  you 
write  is  an  appeal  for  a  reader.  It  is  to  your  advantage,  therefore, 
to  make  the  reader's  task  as  light  as  possible.  In  no  other  respect 
does  he  need  your  aid  more  than  in  the  matter  of  emphasis.  You 
should  indicate  clearly,  then,  what  are  your  prominent  ideas. 
You  do  this,  it  must  be  repeated,  by  placing  them  in  the  emphatic 
positions,  —  the  beginning  and  the  end. 

The  following  sentence  has  proper  emphasis :  — 

Judging  from  past  history,  no  very  important  part  in  civilization  will 
ever  be  played  by  the  Javanese. 


I36  ENGLISH  COMPOSITION 

Here,  the  position  of  the  word  "Javanese"  calls  special  attention 
to  the  people.  It  is  the  Javanese  you  are  talking  about  —  not 
the  Chinese,  or  the  Patagonians.  The  reason  for  your  statement 
is  also  noteworthy.  It  is  upon  past  history  that  you  base  your 
judgment.  You  emphasize  this  point  by  placing  it  first.  By 
this  device  your  reader  is  correctly  informed  of  the  relative  value 
of  these  two  facts.  So  in  these  sentences :  — 

Power  of  style,  properly  so  called,  as  manifested  in  the  masters  of 
style  like  Dante  or  Milton  in  poetry,  Cicero,  Bossuet,  or  Bolingbroke 
in  prose,  is  something  quite  different,  and  has,  as  I  have  said,  for  its 
characteristic  effect,  this :  to  add  dignity  and  distinction. 

The  Queen  will  readily  excuse  our  over-zealous  actions,  for  the  cause 
in  which  we  fight  is  hers. 

On  men  and  manners  —  at  least,  on  the  men  and  manners  of  a  par- 
ticular place  and  a  particular  age  —  Johnson  had  certainly  looked  with 
a  most  observant  and  discriminating  eye. 

In  the  following  sentences,  on  the  other  hand,  the  most  signifi- 
cant ideas  are  obscured  to  the  eye  by  being  surrounded  with  un- 
important details :  — 

The  papers  deny  the  report  that  Congress  has  agreed  to  amend  the 
tariff,  much  to  the  general  dissatisfaction. 

During  the  holidays  there  was  so  much  gayety  that  I  seldom  saw  my 
family  because  each  night  there  was  either  a  dance  or  a  theater  party. 

The  fellow  who  starts  right  and  does  his  best  is  the  fellow  who  always 
succeeds  in  the  end. 

We  went  home,  after  all  our  misfortunes,  glad  to  get  one  night's 
undisturbed  rest,  anyhow. 

As  to  which  is  the  more  emphatic  position,  the  beginning  or  the 
end,  no  absolute  rule  can  be  given.  Usually,  however,  the  end 
is  more  forcible.  We  may  use  here  again  an  illustration  employed 
in  a  previous  chapter.  The  wailing  cry  of  a  guilty  child,  "  I  did 
it,  mother,  but  I'll  never  do  it  again ! "  is  much  more  emphatic 
than,  "I'll  never  do  it  again,  but  I  did  do  it "'  The  former  sen- 
tence calls  special  attention  to  the  point  that  the  child  undoubtedly 
wished  to  emphasize.  He  wanted  to  impress  upon  his  mother, 
not  the  confession,  but  the  promised  reformation. 


THE  SENTENCE  137 

There  may  be,  moreover,  a  sort  of  secondary  emphasis  within 
the  limits  of  the  sentence.  Words  before  a  mark  of  punctuation  — 
comma,  semicolon,  colon  —  are  emphatic  in  an  ascending  scale. 
To  illustrate :  — 

Mannerism  is  pardonable,  and  is  sometimes  even  agreeable,  when 
the  manner,  though  vicious,  is  natural. 

He  could  fast;  but  when  he  did  not  fast  he  tore  his  dinner  like  a 
famished  wolf,  with  the  veins  swelling  on  his  forehead,  and  the  perspira- 
tion running  down  his  cheeks. 

If  a  student  applies  himself  diligently  to  his  books;  if  he  takes  some 
part  in  athletics;  if  he  cultivates  that  side  of  his  nature  called  the  social; 
then  his  development  will  be  threefold:  he  will  grow  strong  in  mind, 
in  body,  and  in  knowledge  of  men. 

Now  to  do  successfully  what  we  have  been  describing  is  no  easy 
task.  This  is  because,  in  English,  position  largely  determines 
meaning.  Hence,  in  putting  expressions  in  emphatic  positions, 
you  run  a  danger  of  taking  them  too  far  from  the  words  upon  which 
they  depend,  and  so  of  doing  violence  to  Coherence.  You  must 
learn,  therefore,  not  only  to  make  the  words  occupy  emphatic 
positions,  but  to  make  them  seem  to  do  so  naturally. 

This  requires  a  great  deal  of  ingenuity.  Fortunately  the 
English  language  is  resourceful  enough  to  allow  you  to  do  this 
unhampered.  To  borrow  an  illustration,1  the  sentence  "Nero 
killed  Agrippina"  can  be  arranged  in  various  ways  in  order  to 
bring  out  the  particular  idea  you  wish  to  emphasize.  If  you  wish 
to  call  special  attention  to  the  fact  that  Nero  was  the  murderer,  you 
say,  "It  was  Nero  who  killed  Agrippina";  if  you  want  to  fix 
attention  upon  the  person  murdered,  you  say,  "It  was  Agrippina 
that  Nero  killed."  Or  you  may  wish  to  bring  out  forcibly  the  fact 
of  the  murder;  you  say,  accordingly,  "For  Nero's  crime  against 
Agrippina  the  only  word  is  murder."  By  manipulating  words; 
by  changing  the  order  without  obscuring  the  grammatical  sense; 
by  using  the  passive  voice  instead  of  the  active,  and  vice  versa; 
by  a  dozen  little  ingenious  devices,  you  can  shake  up  the  words 
of  a  sentence  until  the  important  ones  are  in  the  emphatic  places. 

1  A.  S.  Hill,  Principles  of  Rhetoric,  p.  185. 


I38  ENGLISH  COMPOSITION 

The  above  discussion  brings  us  logically  to  another  general 
principle.  Words  out  of  their  natural  order  are  always  emphatic. 
The  natural  order  is  the  usual  grammatical  series :  subject,  verb, 
complements.  When  one  of  these  elements  is  out  of  its  order, 
special  attention  is  called  to  it.  Could  you  take  oath  that  every 
man  in  English  recitation  yesterday  had  on  a  necktie  ?  Yet  every 
one  in  the  room  knew  that  yours  was  skewed  around  under  your 
left  ear.  Similarly,  you  notice  a  word  when  it  is  put  where  you 
do  not  expect  it.  For  example :  — 

Last  of  all  came  Satan. 

Pop  goes  the  weasel ! 

If  I  say  stop,  stop  he  shall! 

How  good  you  are ! 

Back  darted  Spurius  Lartius. 

Sweet  are  the  uses  of  adversity. 

This  method  of  achieving  emphasis  tends,  however,  to  lead  you 
into  extravagance.  Be  sure  that  the  inversion  does  not  appear 
forced  instead  of  forcible.  In  the  following  sentences  the  order 
is  offensively  unnatural :  — 

Her,  by  the  way,  in  after  life,  I  had  many  opportunities  to  meet. 

Me  though  just  right  and  the  fixed  laws  of  Heaven 
Did  first  create  your  leader. 

Carlyle  offends  notoriously  in  this  respect:  — 

Yes  truly;   it  is  the  ultimate  persuasive,  that. 

Him  Heaven  had  kneaded  of  much  more  potent  stuff. 

On  Pitt,  amid  confused  clouds,  there  is  a  bright  dawn  rising. 

Another  device  whereby  the  position  of  words,  phrases,  and 
clauses  indicates  emphasis  is  called  Antithesis.  By  means  of  this 
construction  ideas  or  thoughts  are  placed  in  contrast;  they  there- 
fore lend  each  other  stress. 

We  live  in  deeds,  not  years. 

Read  not  to  contradict  and  confute,  but  to  weigh  and  consider. 

Character  is  what  we  are;   reputation,  what  people  think  we  are. 


THE  SENTENCE  139 

It  is  not  what  a  lawyer  tells  me  I  may  do ;  but  what  humanity,  reason, 
and  justice  tell  me  I  ought  to  do. 

With  Milton  line  runs  into  line,  and  all  is  straightly  bound  together; 
with  Homer  line  runs  off  from  line,  and  all  hurries  away  onward. 

As  a  means  of  securing  forcible  expression,  antithesis  is  always 
effective.  It  is  open,  however,  to  two  objections:  used  in  excess 
it  becomes  tiresome ;  indulged  too  frequently  it  grows  into  a  habit. 
The  habit  once  acquired  leads  the  writer  into  twisting  the  facts 
in  order  to  bring  about  the  desired  antithetical  arrangement. 
Pope  and  Macaulay  illustrate  these  two  faults.  Macaulay's 
writings,  especially,  owing  to  his  ungoverned  fondness  for  this 
construction,  are  often  both  wearisome  and  untrustworthy. 
Chesterton,  one  of  the  most  interesting  and  forceful  of  modern 
prose  writers,  has  fed  his  love  for  this  kind  of  writing  until  it 
has  become  a  passion.  Young  writers,  however,  should  cultivate 
this  style;  for  they  can  thereby  often  make  their  themes  energetic, 
and  there  is  little  danger  that  they  will  get  the  habit. 

Force  is  gained  also  by  the  use  of  Climax.  By  this  arrangement, 
words,  phrases,  and  clauses  are  placed  in  an  ascending  series.  The 
sentence  gains  momentum  as  it  moves,  and  ends  with  tremendous 
power. 

Washington  was  first  in  war,  first  in  peace,  and  first  in  the  hearts 
of  his  countrymen. 

This  sentence  as  a  whole  is  energetic;  and  the  phrase  "first  in 
the  hearts  of  his  countrymen,"  bounding  up  leap  by  leap  above 
the  other  phrases,  is  given  wonderful  prominence.  The  follow- 
ing sentences  also  illustrate  this  source  of  strength :  — 

A  man's  power,  his  greatness,  his  glory  depend  on  essential  qualities. 

In  the  rank  of  Lord  Byron,  in  his  understanding,  in  his  character, 
in  his  very  person,  there  was  a  strange  union  of  opposite  extremes. 

He  is  invited  to  Edinburgh;  hastens  thither  with  anticipating  heart; 
is  welcomed  as  in  a  triumph,  and  with  universal  blandishment  and 
acclamation. 

You  probably  will  not  have  many  opportunities  to  employ  climaxes ; 
but  you  should  make  use  of  every  chance  you  have.  At  any  rate, 


I4o  ENGLISH  COMPOSITION 

avoid  the  common  fault  of  ending  your  sentence  with  an  expres- 
sion weaker  than  one  just  preceding  it.  Do  not  write  sentences 
like  these :  — 

The  electrical  locomotives  are  better  in  every  way:  safer,  cheaper, 
faster,  and  cleaner. 

Sickness  not  only  kept  him  from  school  all  spring,  but  prevented  him 
from  writing  all  his  themes. 

Freshmen  like  Prom,  week  even  if  they  can't  go  to  the  dance  and  the 
pretty  girls  don't  notice  them. 

Of  the  two  types  of  sentence  —  periodic  and  loose  —  the  former 
is  always  more  emphatic.  This  should  be  evident  merely  from  the 
definition.  The  meaning  in  a  periodic  sentence  is  not  complete 
until  the  end.  The  leading  idea,  then,  is  usually  emphasized  by 
being  placed  last.  In  the  loose  sentence,  however,  there  is  more 
than  one  place  where  the  sentence  might  end  and  still  make  com- 
plete sense.  It  is  too  much  to  suppose  that  the  sense  would  be 
equally  emphatic  at  each  of  these  points.  In  fact,  just  as  the  loose 
sentence  offers  temptations  for  offenses  against  Unity  by  allowing 
phrases  or  clauses  to  trail  one  after  another,  so  it  allures  to  viola- 
tions of  Emphasis.  Never  is  a  sentence  weaker  in  effect  than  when 
it  ends  with  an  unimportant  phrase  or  subordinate  clause.  Yet 
theme-writers  repeatedly  blunder  in  this  respect.  No  error  is 
more  common.  The  method,  apparently,  is  to  blurt  out  in  the 
first  clause  the  most  important  point,  and  then  to  hook  on  phrase 
after  phrase,  clause  after  clause,  as  long  as  the  sentence  will  stand 
the  strain.  The  result  is  as  follows :  — 

I  rewrote  all  my  themes  correctly  at  last  without  much  difficulty  on 
the  last  few  days  of  the  term. 

It  is  no  easy  task  to  prevent  people  from  finding  fault  with  things 
beyond  their  comprehension. 

I  always  prophesied  his  greatness,  from  the  first  moment  I  saw  him, 
then  a  young  man  and  unknown  outside  of  the  circle  of  his  own  par- 
ticular friends. 

When  clauses  are  allowed  to  trail  in  this  manner,  the  effect  is  much 
worse :  — 


THE  SENTENCE  141 

The  climate  of  New  Haven  might  be  termed  variable,  since  it  often 
changes  in  one  day  from  warmth  to  extreme  cold ;  although  even  there 
the  weather  is  very  steady  for  a  while. 

Football  has  changed  much  in  the  last  few  years  because  of  the 
adoption  of  better  rules,  although  there  is  still  room  for  improvement. 

If  we  were  to  study  engineering  only  without  any  English  to  accom- 
pany the  course,  we  should  be  illiterate,  although  the  English  is  not 
necessary  to  the  engineering  studies. 

Such  sentences  are  piteously  feeble.  Not  the  least  fault  is  that 
in  the  last  clause  the  writer  takes  back,  in  effect,  what  he  has  said 
before,  thus  leaving  the  opposite  impression  to  that  intended. 
If  you  have  to  make  exceptions,  allowances,  or  provisos,  stow  them 
away  inconspicuously  in  the  hold,  and  hang  your  cardinal  fact 
like  a  banner  to  the  monkey-gaff. 

The  comparative  forcibleness  of  loose  and  periodic  sentences 
may  be  seen  by  noting  the  following.  Some  of  Macaulay's  sen- 
tences are  given,  first  in  the  periodic  form  in  which  he  wrote  them, 
then  in  a  transposed  form  which  makes  them  loose. 

Instead  of  catching  occasional  glimpses  of  the  Diety  through  an 
obscuring  veil,  they  aspired  to  gaze  full  on  the  intolerable  brightness. 

They  aspired  to  gaze  full  on  the  intolerable  brightness  of  the  Deity, 
instead  of  catching  occasional  glimpses  of  Him  through  an  obscuring  veil. 

On  the  rich  and  the  eloquent,  on  nobles  and  priests,  they  looked  down 
with  contempt. 

They  looked  down  with  contempt  on  the  rich  and  the  eloquent,  on 
nobles  and  priests. 

Not  content  with  acknowledging,  in  general  terms,  an  over-ruling 
Providence,  they  habitually  ascribed  every  event  to  the  will  of  the  Great 
Being. 

They  habitually  ascribed  every  event  to  the  will  of  the  Great  Being, 
not  content  to  acknowledge,  in  general  terms,  an  over-ruling  Providence. 

For  other  examples,  see  Appendix,  p.  380. 

Of  course  you  are  now  not  being  counseled  to  make  all  your 
sentences  periodic.  If  you  should  do  so,  your  style  would  be  in- 
tolerably stiff  and  formal.  But  there  is  little  fear  that  you  will 
ever  use  too  many  sentences  of  this  type.  Therefore,  make  as.  many 
as  possible  of  your  sentences  periodic. 


142 


ENGLISH   COMPOSITION 


Another  form  of  sentence  that  is  emphatic  is  the  Balanced 
Sentence.  In  this  type  the  words  and  phrases  of  one  part  corre- 
spond in  form  and  position  with  those  of  another  part.  The  ideas 
expressed  by  these  sets  of  words  and  phrases  are  often  —  not 
always — in  contrast.  The  balanced  sentence  is  thus  similar  in 
its  effect  to  Antithesis.  It  is  too  artificial  to  be  used  freely,  but 
is  often  pleasing  in  its  strength;  as, 

My  roommate  is  for  talking  continuously;  I  am  for  studying  part 
of  the  time.  He  favors  Egyptian  Deities  and  Craven  Mixture;  I 
prefer  Naturals  and  Bull  Durham.  He  is  very  fond  of  the  Hyperion 
Theatre;  I  like  Poli's.  His  taste  runs  to  Pilsner;  I  don't  drink  any- 
thing but  water.  We  do  not,  therefore,  often  agree. 

Thus  far  we  have  been  discussing  the  emphasis  of  words,  phrases, 
and  clauses  as  determined  by  their  position.  There  is  another 
way  by  which  the  relative  importance  of  the  ideas  in  a  sentence 
may  be  manifested.  This  is  by  a  proper  subordination  of  the 
grammatical  elements.  Next  to  the  matter  of  loose  and  periodic 
sentences,  there  is  nothing  which  demands  so  much  and  receives 
so  little  attention. 

The  principle  of  subordination  requires  that  one  statement  be 
made  independent  and  that  the  others  in  the  sentence  be  made 
subject  to  it.  Reason  dictates  that  the  most  important  statement 
be  put  in  this  independent  relation.  Yet  the  constant  practice 
both  in  speaking  and  writing  is  to  disregard  this  obvious  device. 
Often  our  best  ideas  are  overlooked  because  we  hide  them  away 
in  the  obscurity  of  some  subordinate  clause.  Conversely,  minor 
points  sometimes  usurp  undue  attention,  because  they  are  placed 
in  the  independent  relation.  This  is  due  to  the  tendency  to  make 
our  first  statement,  whatever  it  happens  to  be,  the  main  clause. 
The  following  examples  illustrate  this  fault :  — 

I  was  walking  along  the  street  when  I  met  an  old  woman  carrying 
a  heavy  basket  of  clothes. 

The  important  statement  here  is  certainly  not  that  I  was  walking 
along  the  street  but  that  I  met  an  old  woman.  To  bring  out  the 
proper  subordination,  we  might  say:  — 


THE  SENTENCE  143 

As  I  was  walking  along  the  street,  I  met,  etc. 

I  think  that  Mr.  Steevens  did  wrong  in  accepting  a  nomination  from 
a  party  whose  principles  he  could  not  conscientiously  approve. 

Here,  "I  think,"  the  least  important  statement  in  the  sentence, 
is  made  the  main  clause  and  is  put  in  one  of  the  important  positions. 
In  like  manner,  "Mr.  Steevens  did  wrong,"  which  is  the  main 
statement,  is  put  in  a  subordinate  relation  and  hidden  away  in 
the  interior  of  the  sentence,  —  the  least  emphatic  place.  To 
insure  the  proper  emphasis,  rearrange  as  follows:  — 

In  accepting  a  nomination  from  a  party  whose  principles  he  could 
not  conscientiously  approve,  Mr.  Steevens,  I  think,  did  wrong. 

Similarly :  — 

He  said  that  he  had  always  thought  that  bribery  was  one  of  the  worst 
of  crimes. 

He  had  had  many  misfortunes,  but  he  was  happy  now,  for  fortune 
seemed  to  favor  him. 

The  front  tire  of  an  automobile  blew  out  while  it  was  going  very  fast, 
although  no  one  was  hurt. 

A  very  common  error  of  this  sort  is  the  misuse  of  so  as  a  con- 
junction. To  use  again  an  illustration  employed  previously  in 
this  chapter :  — 

It  began  to  rain,  and  so  we  started  home. 

It  was  pointed  out  that  this  sentence  violates  unity  because  two 
statements  not  of  equal  rank  are  made  co-ordinate.  Frequently 
careless  writers  go  one  step  farther  and  omit  the  and,  so  that  the 
sentence  becomes :  — 

It  began  to  rain,  so  we  started  home. 

This  sentence  is  faulty  because  the  writer  has  not  made  it  clear 
whether  he  regards  the  second  statement  as  co-ordinate  with  the 
first,  or  subordinate  to  it.  Does  he  regard  the  two  statements  of 
equal  value?  If  he  does  so  regard  them  he  has  violated  em- 


I44  ENGLISH^  COMPOSITION 

phasis  for  the  same  reason  that  he  has  violated  unity.  He  has 
equalized  two  statements  that  are  not  of  equal  rank ;  one  of  these 
he  has  given  undue  prominence  by  lifting  it  up  from  its  subordinate 
relation.  Or,  does  he  intend  the  first  to  be  the  main  clause,  and 
the  second  a  subordinate  clause  denoting  result?  If  this  is  the 
case,  he  has  not  made  the  relation  clear.  He  should  have  said, 

It  began  to  rain,  so  that  we  started  home. 

Then  the  reader  would  have  known  at  once  that  the  persons  repre- 
sented by  the  pronoun  "we"  started  home  as  a  result  of  the  rain. 
Troubles  of  this  sort  may  be  avoided  by  relieving  so  of  some  of 
its  numerous  duties.  It  is  cruelly  overworked.  Get  out  of  the 
habit  of  using  so,  in  the  sense  of  and  so.  Learn  to  use  consequently, 
accordingly,  therefore,  etc.  These  words  are  longer,  but  they  are 
more  specific  in  their  meanings,  and  are  not  likely  to  be  mis- 
understood. Learn  also  to  say  so  that  when  you  are  introducing 
a  result  clause,  as  in  the  example  above.  Furthermore,  in  cases 
of  this  kind,  you  can  avoid  all  confusion  by  a  change  in  sub- 
ordination. Instead  of  appending  the  clause  in  a  result-relation, 
make  it  the  main  clause,  and  reduce  the  other  to  a  clause  ex- 
pressing cause.  Say,  for  example, 

As  1 

Since       >  it  began  to  rain,  we  started  home. 

Because  J 

This  sentence  is  much  more  emphatic  than  either 

It  began  to  rain,  so  we  started  home, 
or 

It  began  to  rain,  so  that  we  started  home. 

For  it  is  reasonable  to  suppose  that  the  fact  that  we  started  home 
is  the  more  important  of  the  two. 

The  following  examples  of  the  same  abuse  may  be  profitably 
studied :  — 

Plenty  of  light  was  needed,  so  the  lantern  was  brought  closer. 
He  was  through  with  his  work  when  he  put  the  things  away,  so  he 
went  home. 


THE  SENTENCE  145 

He  was  unsuccessful  in  his  first  exam.,  so  he  stayed  away  from  all  the 
rest. 

I  was  tired  and  my  feet  ached,  so  I  refused  to  stir  another  step. 

Our  auto  broke  down  while  climbing  a  steep  hill,  so  we  had  to  walk 
home. 

The  morning  was  bright  and  sunny,  so  I  started  out  to  take  a  ramble. 
Pretty  soon  I  met  an  old  man  with  a  pole  and  line,  going  fishing,  so, 
at  his  invitation,  I  went  along. 

Now  you  are  not  to  understand,  of  course,  that  the  most  em- 
phatic statement  should  be  put  in  the  main  clause  invariably. 
This  arrangement  would  be  fatiguing  to  both  writer  and  reader. 
In  continuous  writing,  ease  demands  a  certain  relaxation. 
Often  the  thought  in  a  sentence  is  such  that  no  one  statement 
requires  especial  emphasis.  Furthermore,  it  sometimes  happens 
that,  for  example,  the  time  or  cause  of  an  action  or  of  a  fact  is, 
for  the  writer's  purpose,  more  important  and  hence  more  emphatic 
than  the  action  or  the  fact  itself.  This  is  illustrated  in  the  follow- 
ing sentences : — 

He  remained  at  home,  not  because  he  was  indifferent,  but  because 
he  was  sick. 

My  roommate  usually  studies  during  the  early  hours  of  the  evening, 
but  he  always  puts  his  light  out  when  the  clock  strikes  ten. 

But,  in  general,  you  should  form  the  habit  of  putting  your  chief 
ideas  in  the  main  clauses  and  your  subsidiary  ideas  in  the  sub- 
ordinate clauses.  Then  the  reader  is  able  to  estimate  at  once  the 
relative  value  of  your  statements. 

For  making  his  work  emphatic,  the  writer  has  one  other  re- 
source. Occasionally,  in  a  long  series  of  declarative  sentences, 
special  point  may  be  given  to  a  particular  thought  by  putting  it 
in  the  form  of-  a  rhetorical  question  or  exclamation.  This  is  so 
familiar  a  device  that  it  is  mentioned  only  to  make  the  discussion 
complete.  You  naturally  make  use  of  such  expressions,  for  ex- 
ample, as  the  following :  — 

What  could  I  do  now? 
O  that  I  were  safe  at  home  again ! 
L 


146  ENGLISH  COMPOSITION 

You  will  probably  find  it  necessary  to  curb  your  readiness  to 
write  in  this  style  rather  than  to  cultivate  it. 

As  a  sort  of  summary  of  the  means  of  securing  emphasis  in  the 
sentence,  the  following  example  will  serve.  A  short  passage  from 
Macaulay  is  give'n  first  in  a  transposed  form.  Changes  are  made 
in  the  position  of  phrases  and  clauses,  and  in  the  plan  of  subor- 
dination of  the  statements.  It  is  then  given  as  Macaulay  wrote 
it.  Compare  the  two  carefully,  and  note  how  the  second  gains  in 
emphasis. 

Mr.  Burke  most  justly  observed  that  Johnson  appears  far  greater  in 
Boswell's  books  than  in  his  own.  His  conversation  appears  to  have 
been  in  matter  quite  equal  to  his  writings  and  in  manner  far  superior 
to  them.  He  clothed  his  wit  and  his  sense  in  forcible  and  natural  ex- 
pressions, when  he  talked.  But  he  took  his  pen  in  hand  to  write  for 
the  public,  and  then  his  style  became  systematically  vicious. 

Johnson,  as  Mr.  Burke  most  justly  observed,  appears  far  greater  in 
Boswell's  books  than  in  his  own.  His  conversation  appears  to  have 
been  quite  equal  to  his  writings  in  matter,  and  far  superior  to  them  in 
manner.  When  he  talked,  he  clothed  his  wit  and  his  sense  in  forcible 
and  natural  expressions.  As  soon  as  he  took  his  pen  in  hand  to  write 
for  the  public,  his  style  became  systematically  vicious.1 

In  studying  this  chapter  on  the  sentence,  you  cannot  have  failed 
to  notice  that  much  stress  was  laid  on  grammatical  subordination. 
In  the  section  on  Unity  it  was  shown  what  various  subordinate 
relations  statements  may  bear  to  each  other  and  how  they  may 
be  combined  into  a  sentence  in  such  a  manner  as  to  express  one 
complete  thought.  In  the  discussion  of  Coherence  it  was  pointed 
out  how  to  arrange  dependent  clauses  in  order  to  insure  clearness. 
Emphasis,  in  like  manner,  was  found  to  be  determined  largely 
by  the  proper  subjection  of  unimportant  elements.  Thus,  it  is 
indispensable  to  indicate  accurately  the  relative  values  of  the  con- 
stituent ideas  of  a  thought,  if  you  would  make  your  sentence 
thoroughly  effective. 

Obviously,  then,  everything  goes  back  to  the  starting  point, 
which  is  the  mind  of  the  writer.  In  order  to  write  unifiedly, 

1  For  miscellaneous  examples  of  violations  of  Emphasis,  see  Appendix, 
p.  378- 


THE  SENTENCE  147 

coherently,  and  emphatically,  to  make  your  thought  appear  on 
paper  single,  clear,  and  forcible,  you  must  form  the  habit  of  ac- 
curate thinking.  At  the  very  beginning  of  the  book,  this  necessity 
was  mentioned.  It  is  essential  to  the  Whole  Composition,  to  the 
Paragraph,  to  the  Sentence.  In  the  sentence,  which  is  the  smallest 
unit  of  thought,  it  is  to  be  observed  with  especial  care.  You  must 
cultivate  a  sense  of  proportion,  learn  to  estimate  values,  to  recognize 
shades  of  meaning.  Train  your  mind  to  perform  these  functions, 
and  when  you  begin  to  write,  the  necessary  work  of  construction 
has  already  been  done.  You  have  only  to  put  down  in  black  and 
white  what  has  already  been  completely  planned  by  the  faculties 
of  your  brain. 


CHAPTER  VII 

THE  RIGHT  WORD 

WHEN  you  entered  upon  this  study  of  composition  you  were 
acquainted  with  several  thousand  English  words,  though  you  may 
not  have  used  all  of  them  rightly.  You  did  not  stumble  or  hesitate 
at  finding  any  one  of  them  on  the  tip  of  your  tongue.  You  were 
no  doubt  aware  of  fully  an  equal  number,  which  you  felt  you 
understood,  but  nevertheless  hesitated  to  use,  since  they  were 
unfamiliar. 

Beyond  these  bounds  stretches  the  vast  vocabulary  of  the  language, 
which  the  new  dictionaries  will  soon  bring  up  to  three  hundred 
thousand  words.  Tens  of  thousands  of  these  are  of  course  techni- 
cal and  scientific  words,  which  you  will  never  meet,  save  when 
your  wandering  eye  runs  down  the  dictionary  column,  and  pauses 
amazed  at  some  monstrous  formation  of  science.  But  thousands 
more  you  will  meet,  and  will  need  to  understand. 

Obviously,  in  view  of  these  facts,  two  things  are  needful  at  once : 
readjustment  of  the  working  vocabulary  you  possess,  and  com- 
pleter  mastery  of  the  vaguer  field  of  words  that  surrounds  you  on 
every  hand.  As  in  the  building  up  of  strength,  you  must  improve 
the  quality  of  what  muscle  you  possess  and  turn  your  useless  weight 
into  more  muscle,  before  you  are  fit  for  a  contest,  so  in  conquering 
the  supreme  difficulty  of  choosing  the  right  word,  you  must  exercise 
your  intellectual  powers  toward  the  acquisition  of  a  wide  and  well- 
chosen  vocabulary. 

Already,  though  perhaps  not  always  consciously,  your  choice 
of  the  right  word,  so  far  as  you  have  sought  it,  has  been  governed 
by  two  standards,  Good  Use  and  Effectiveness.  You  have  felt, 
though  perhaps  vaguely,  that  certain  words  and  expressions  that 
passed  well  enough  in  talk  among  your  classmates,  were  to  be 
avoided  in  the  home  circle,  among  older  men,  or  in  correspondence. 
148 


THE  RIGHT  WORD  149 

or  other  writing.  Good  Use  was  then  your  standard.  You  have 
not  always  been  sure,  after  you  have  spoken,  that  you  have  said 
just  what  you  meant  to  say,  or  that  your  presentation  of  the  facts 
produced  the  effect  you  had  intended.  You  have  felt  at  times 
that  your  story  was  a  bit  lame,  your  description  a  little  indistinct, 
your  explanation  vague;  you  have  often  said, "I  know  what  I  want 
to  say,  but  I  cannot  express  it."  Effectiveness  was  then  your 
standard. 

Your  success  in  the  quest  for  the  right  word  will  depend  entirely 
upon  a  more  rigid  application  of  the  tests  of  Good  Use  and  Effec- 
tiveness. 

Good  Use  is  the  use,  or  general  practice  at  present,  of  good  writers 
and  speakers,  —  the  best,  if  we  could  but  find  them.  From  this 
definition  it  follows,  that  you  should  put  yourself  in  the  way  of 
hearing  and  reading  good  speakers  and  writers,  in  order  to  become 
familiar  with  their  general  practice.  A  dictionary,  provided  it 
contains  the  usage  of  accepted  authorities,  is  your  next  best  guide. 

It  is  the  general  practice  of  good  writers  to  avoid  slang,  colloquial, 
provincial,  and  dialectal  expressions,  foreign  words  where  there  is 
a  satisfactory  English  equivalent,  pompous  language,  and  archaisms. 

Slang  is  often  picturesque,  forcible,  and  witty,  but  it  is  avoided 
by  a  good  writer  for  the  same  reason  that  shady  acquaintances  are 
avoided;  they  bring  him  sooner  or  later  into  disrepute. 

Moreover,  it  is  the  common  lot  of  the  slang  term  to  be  extended 
to  include  a  great  variety  of  meanings.  As  the  hundred  terms  of 
the  Chinook  jargon  of  the  Pacific  slope  are  sufficient  for  the  needs 
of  trade,  so  a  hundred  or  two  slang  terms  will  convey  fairly  well  the 
ideas  of  a  modern  schoolboy.  When  one  remonstrates  with  him, 
his  reply  is  apt  to  be,  "Why  not?  The  fellows  all  understand 
what  I  mean."  He  does  not  realize  that  the  inevitable  result  will 
be  poverty  as  regards  the  real  resources  of  language ;  and  the  day 
will  come  when  he  will  be  ashamed  of  having  to  put  his  thoughts 
into  slang,  for  lack  of  knowledge  of  the  right  word.  We  might 
even  say  that  the  franchise  to  use  slang  should  be  granted  only 
when  the  speaker  can,  if  he  chooses,  put  the  same  thought  in  words 
of  good  usage. 

In  the  year  in  which  this  book  is  written  the  word  "dope"  seems 
in  its  various  significations  to  provide  at  least  one-third  of  the 


!-0  ENGLISH  COMPOSITION 

meaningj  needed  to  complete  the  vocabulary  of  the  average  college 
student.  The  intellectual  poverty  that  results  is  unworthy  of 
college  men.  In  another  year  some  other  word  will  be  similarly 
over-used. 

Colloquial  words,  unlike  slang  words,  are  proper  enough  at  any 
time  in  familiar  talk,  which  would  indeed  sound  stilted  and  un- 
friendly without  them;  but  they  may  be  out  of  place  in  formal 
speech  and  in  writing.  Colloquial  speech  may  be  denned  as  the 
familiar  talk  of  good  speakers,  which  varies,  though  not  to  the 
same  degree  as  in  other  languages,  from  literary  expression.  A 
Syrian,  brought  to  this  country  when  a  boy  and  educated  at  an 
American  University,  upon  his  return  to  his  native  country  at- 
tempted to  address  his  countrymen  in  the  colloquial  Arabic  of  his 
boyhood.  He  was  hissed  from  the  platform.  His  speech  was 
an  insult,  as  they  thought,  to  their  literary  language,  which  has 
now  become  utterly  different  from  every-day  talk. 

Examples  of  colloquial  speech  are  the  following:  /'//  be  there, 
all  right,  anyhow.  Well,  why  not  ?  Quite  so.  I  say,  wait  a  bit. 
I  did  it,  though. 

Provincial  and  dialectal  words  will  be  avoided  because  they  arc 
not  intelligible  among  all  English  speakers,  and  because  their  use 
in  writing  might  argue  the  writer's  ignorance  of  their  equivalent  in 
universal  practice.  No  such  effort  to  avoid  provincialisms  should 
be  made  in  colloquial  speech,  which  gains  through  their  use  a 
variety  and  raciness  wholly  desirable,  and  which  more  than  any 
other  thing  gives  character  and  individuality  to  the  different 
districts  of  this  country  and  of  England.1  But  in  writing,  which 

1  It  is  a  mistaken  idea  to  consider  as  the  best  accent  in  colloquial  speech 
such  a  compromise  as  will  effectively  conceal  the  part  of  the  country  from 
which  you  come.  That  speaker  will  be  most  admired,  who,  while  ridding 
his  tongue  of  those  elements  in  his  own  dialect  which  are  harsh  and  un- 
pleasant, still  stands  proudly  and  sturdily  by  that  dialect  in  which  he  was 
brought  up.  We  none  of  us  think  any  the  less  of  the  Yorkshire  gardener 
whose  ten  years  in  this  country  have  not  affected  his  burr  in  the  slightest. 

The  reason  why  we  may  feel  pride  in  dialect  is  that  both  in  speech  and 
word  it  is  a  survival  from  a  time  when  such  usage  wus  just  as  good  as  the 
next  county's,  or  else  that  it  helps  to  tell  the  history  of  the  community  in 
Us  relations  with  its  neighbors  and  its  borrowings  of  their  words.  There 
is  history  back  of  your  dialect,  and  it  is  not  to  be  despised. 


THE  RIGHT   WORD  151 

appeals  to  readers  who  may  be  ignorant  of  the  terms  of  provincial 
speech,  it  is  well  to  adopt  only  universal  usage. 

Examples  of  provincial  usage  are :  /  guess,  I  reckon,  you  want 
to  mind  your  pa,  I  like  to  died  of  thirst  (  =  almost},  I  took  Spanish, 
was  you  there?  there  was  quite  some  people. 

Foreign  words,  which  are  still  felt  to  be  foreign,  should  be 
generally  avoided,  as  savoring  of  affectation  or  as  confusing  to  the 
ordinary  reader.  Exceptions  to  this  rule  occur,  as  when,  to  use 
a  homely  example,  a  bit  of  foreign  cookery  must  be  named  a  pate 
or  an  entree. 

English  has  always  been  hospitable  to  words  from  foreign 
sources,  for  which  no  equivalent  was  to  be  found  in  the  English 
of  the  time.  Mosquito,  piano,  prestige,  lexicon,  simile,  zinc, 
pajamas  are  examples,  each  from  a  different  language.  Oc- 
casionally a  wrong  word  gets  in,  as  when  chauffeur,  the  French 
word  for  engine-driver,  gets  into  English  with  the  meaning  which 
properly  belongs  to  the  French  mecanicien.  A  good  rule  is,  not 
to  be  among  the  first  to  introduce  a  foreign  word.  You  may 
depend  on  the  genius  of  the  language  to  supply  what  words  you 
need,  all  in  good  time. 

It  is  needless  to  point  out  why  pompous  language  and  the  highly 
figurative  language  of  poetry  are  to  be  avoided  in  ordinary  prose. 
Every  one  feels  how  out  of  place  they  are.  A  certain  oratorical 
robustness  of  phrase,  a  certain  spread-eagleism,  is  however  still 
to  be  guarded  against,  especially  by  those  who  have  been  fond  of 
public  speaking,  or  who  have  read  orations  more  often  than  other 
forms  of  composition.  Good  use  sanctions  such  speech  only  upon 
important  occasions,  and  from  the  lips  of  authority. 

Archaisms,  or  old  terms  no  longer  current  in  good  writing,  must 
be  left  to  the  poet,  and  even  he  will  do  well  to  use  them  sparingly. 
They  have  no  place  in  prose.  Thus,  the  third  person  in  -eth,  of 
the  present  indicative  of  the  active  verb,  is  out  of  place  in  prose 
of  the  twentieth  century,  though  common  and  in  good  use  as  late 
as  Washington's  time.  The  language  of  the  pulpit  is,  of  course, 
justified  in  a  certain  use  of  the  archaisms  found  in  the  King  James 
Bible,  or  other  early  versions. 

Having  satisfied  yourself  on  this  primary  requirement  of  Good 
Use,  you  will  go  one  step  farther,  and  examine  your  words  with 


152 


ENGLISH  COMPOSITION 


regard  to  the  requirements  of  Effectiveness.  This  is  only  saying 
that  you  look  upon  a  word  as  a  means  of  conveying  your  thought, 
and  that  it  is  the  right  word,  when  it  conveys  just  as  much  meaning 
as  you  intend  it  shall.  The  occasion  will  of  course  determine  the 
degree  of  effectiveness  to  be  obtained;  but  —  to  repeat  the  com- 
parison —  as  in  the  gymnasium  the  director  is  interested  only  in 
developing  your  muscles  to  their  best  strength,  so  here  you  are 
guided  only  towards  your  greatest  power  of  expression.  You 
must  learn  for  yourself,  as  circumstances  shape  themselves,  how 
much  effectiveness  the  right  word  shall  possess. 

Avoiding,  then,  the  technical  terms  of  rhetoricians,  we  may  say 
that  a  word  is  effective,  in  proportion  as  it  conveys  truth,  force, 
and  suggestive  power.  Without  attempting  strict  definitions  of 
these  three  functions,  let  us  look  at  them  by  the  more  simple  pro- 
cess of  application. 

You  have  often  used  the  expressions,  "Strictly  speaking,  that 
is  hardly  true,"  or  "Generally  speaking,  that  may  be  true,"  and 
have  thereby  realized  that  there  are  degrees  in  which  a  thing  is 
true.  You  often  say,  "That  is  true  enough,  perhaps,"  indicating 
that  a  certain  degree  of  truth,  not  necessarily  the  highest,  is  at  times 
satisfactory. 

In  writing  home  of  an  evening's  entertainment,  you  may  decide 
that  "When  I  arrived,  the  family  were  already  at  dinner"  is  true 
enough  and  less  likely  to  cause  misgiving  at  home  than  the  stricter 
truth,  "When  I  arrived,  the  family  had  just  finished  the  ice 
cream,  and  my  hostess  was  obviously  put  out  at  my  tardy 
appearance." 

You  notice  in  the  example  just  given  that  the  strict  truth  was 
had  by  eliminating  the  general  term  dinner,  and  by  substituting  for 
it  specific  terms  for  a  part  of  the  dinner.  Strict  truth  always  de- 
pends upon  the  use  of  specific  words,  of  words  which  admit  of 
but  one  interpretation.  For  the  scientific  man,  of  course,  strict 
truth  must  be  his  one  ideal. 

In  so  far  as  you  aim,  then,  to  be  strictly  true,  —  in  other  words 
to  be  most  effective  in  regard  to  the  demands  of  truth  —  you  must 
use  words  with  specific  or  limited  meaning.  You  must  also,  since 
many  general  terms  have  certain  specific  senses,  familiarize  your- 
self with  the  various  meanings  of  words,  and  the  many  minor 


THE  RIGHT   WORD  153 

differences  of  synonyms.  Here  the  dictionary,  and  a  knowledge 
of  the  history  of  the  word,  will  aid  you ;  but  wide  reading,  and  more 
than  all  knowledge  of  men  and  things,  will  help  you  most. 

Now  the  value  of  forming  the  habit  of  being  strictly  true  in 
speech  and  writing  lies  first  in  its  effect  upon  your  own  mind,  and 
secondly  in  its  effect  upon  others.  You  will  become,  as  you  write, 
more  observant,  painstaking,  and  accurate;  others  will  get  from 
you  a  completer  picture,  a  clearer  conception.  Especially  is  it 
to  be  desired  of  scientific  students,  that  they  be  able  to  tell  the 
exact  truth.  No  matter  how  accurately  you  work  out  a  problem, 
you  work  in  vain  unless  you  can  present  it  with  the  strictest 
accuracy.  Of  all  the  tools  a  scientific  student  employs,  his  tongue 
requires  the  greatest  filing,  the  most  frequent  repair. 

Clearness,  which  is  the  prime  requisite  in  all  writing,  depends 
entirely  upon  your  telling  the  exact  truth.  This  does  not  mean  that 
in  your  zeal  for  exact  truth  you  should  seek  for  what  is  commonly 
called  scientific  terminology,  as  your  only  means  of  expression. 
The  great  one  need  of  scientific  men  to-day  is  to  learn  to  tell  the 
truth  in  terms  which  convey  it.  A  reaction  has  set  in  against  the 
long  words  of  chemists  and  biologists.  In  the  laboratory,  such 
words  are  useful,  but  scarcely  so  outside.  Thus  the  editor  of 
a  mining  journal  objects  to  the  use  of  such  terms  by  mining  experts : 
"When  you  don't  know  what  a  thing  is,  call  it  a  phenomenon. .  .  . 
A  mining  engineer,  of  the  kind  known  to  the  press  as  an 
expert,  described  a  famous  lode  as  traversing  'on  the  one  hand 
a  feldspathic  tufaceous  formation'  and  'on  the  other  hand  a 
metamorphic  matrix  of  a  somewhat  argillo-arenaceous  composi- 
tion.' This  is  scientific  nonsense,  the  mere  travesty  of  speech. 
To  those  who  care  to  dissect  the  terms  used  it  is  plain  that  the 
writer  of  them  could  make  nothing  out  of  the  rocks  he  had  ex- 
amined except  the  fact  that  they  were  decomposed,  and  the  rock 
which  he  described  last  might  have  been  almost  anything,  for 
all  he  said  of  it;  since  his  description,  when  translated,  means 
literally  a  changed  matter  of  a  somewhat  clayey-sandy  composition 
which,  in  Anglo-Saxon,  is  m-u-d !  The  somewhat  is  the  one  use- 
ful word  in  the  sentence." 

Even  the  strictest  truth  can  gain  effectiveness  by  being  forcibly 
or  convincingly  presented.  In  speaking,  the  tones  of  the  voice, 


154 


ENGLISH  COMPOSITION 


facial  expression,  or  gesture,  will  make  an  ordinary  statement 
strong  and  appealing.  The  dramatist  alone  among  writers  may 
look  to  these  things  for  aid  in  the  interpretation  of  his  written  word ; 
other  writers  must  depend  far  more  upon  the  words  themselves 
for  their  effect  of  force  or  convincing  power. 

Here  again  you  will  probably  recognize  that  some  facts  need  less 
forcible  expression  than  others.  Yet  it  is  the  tendency  of  young 
writers  not  to  realize  the  number  of  degrees  which  may  enter  into 
emphasis.  They  know  only  the  top  and  bottom  of  the  scale,  and 
all  intermediate  effects  are  lost.  The  result  is  a  lack  of  effect,  for 
people  very  soon  learn  to  discount  one's  superlatives.  Nor  is  force 
to  be  gained  by  abundant  use  of  full-sounding,  florid  phrasing. 
The  decorated  and  elegant  style  may  safely  be  left  to  the  public 
orator;  simplicity  and  strength  must  be  your  reliance. 

It  is  a  mistake  to  imagine  that  a  liberal  sprinkling  of  such 
words  as  sort  of,  kind  of,  very,  quite,  exceedingly,  tremendously, 
somewhat,  rather,  adds  anything  to  the  truth  or  force  of  your  state- 
ments. Your  reader  does  not  know  the  standard  by  which  you 
measure  your  ideas,  consequently  your  degrees  are  nothing  to  him. 
Moreover,  the  adjectives  to  which  these  adverbs  are  usually  at- 
tached cannot  properly  be  qualified. 

"This  picture  is  a  very  perfect  likeness." 

"  What  you  say  is  very  obvious." 

"  This  tree  is  quite  vertical." 

"  On  the  whole,  he  is  about  the  nicest  fellow  I  know." 

One  indignant  reader  of  scientific  articles  finds  so  many  of  these 
modest  but  unmeaning  modifiers,  that  he  calls  the  practice  "an 
orgy  of  moderation."  This  excessive  modesty  in  stating  facts  is 
most  annoying  to  the  average  reader.  He  wishes  to  determine  for 
himself  the  measure  of  degree,  by  his  knowledge  of  you.  When 
you  tell  him  a  certain  mountain  is  about  a  mile  high,  he  is  no  better 
informed  than  when  you  tell  him  it  is  a  mile  high,  since  the  round 
number  always  implies  some  leeway.  You  can  trust  your  reader 
to  be  aware  of  the  fact  that  you  have  probably  not  measured  the 
mountain,  and  found  it  to  be  exactly  5280  feet  in  height.  Noth- 
ing is  gained  either  by  saying  that  a  man  is  sort  of  fat.  The  sum 


THE  RIGHT   WORD          .  155 

of  it  all  is,  —  rely  on  the  simple  unmodified  word  to  express  your 
meaning. 

We  can  avoid  many  of  these  dubious  adverbs  of  degree  by 
search  for  the  word  that  conveys  the  precise  force  desired.  Thus 
"he  knocked  very  softly"  is  no  better  than  "he  tapped";  "he 
knocked  quite  hard"  than  "he  pounded."  The  English  language 
is  rich  in  precise  terms.  He  is  a  poor  builder  who  depends  upon 
stones  of  a  size  approximate  to  that  required,  and  then  fills  up  with 
little  stones  and  a  liberal  supply  of  mortar.  He  is  all  the  more 
to  be  condemned,  if  there  is  lying  by  him  all  the  time  a  stone  of  the 
exact  size  and  form  needed,  which  he  might  have  for  the  asking. 
Not  only  would  this  stone  be  stronger,  but  it  would  not  give  the 
appearance  of  a  botched  job.  Many  an  engineer,  who  prides 
himself  on  the  smooth  face  of  the  wall  he  has  built,  takes  no  such 
pride  in  the  terms  he  uses  to  describe  it  in  his  report.  Nowhere, 
the  editors  of  technical  journals  tell  us,  will  you  find  vaguer  and 
weaker  use  of  words  than  among  men  with  a  technical  training. 

Against  some  of  these  abuses  it  is  easy  to  warn  you.  The  worst 
of  them  is  the  use  of  unnecessary  words.  It  is  scarcely  too  much 
to  say  that  thirty  per  cent  of  the  words  in  first-term  themes  can 
be  struck  through  without  loss.  They  add  nothing  to  the  meaning ; 
they  clog  it,  instead,  like  barnacles  on  a  ship's  hull,  —  these  long, 
trailing  relative  clauses,  which  boil  down  to  a  single  adjective; 
these  adverbial  modifiers  which  can  be  replaced  by  a  single  adverb ; 
these  long  noun  clauses  for  which  one  noun  is  enough ;  these  tedious 
predicates,  when  one  verb  will  tell  the  story. 

The  man  that  is  not  wanted  in  college  is  the  man  that  does  not 
care  very  much  about  hardly  anything.  (Boiled  down:  College 
opinion  condemns  indifference.) 

He  spoke  to  me  when  we  met  each  other  this  morning  in  a  very 
cordial  manner.  (Boiled  down  :  He  greeted  me  cordially  this  morning.) 

We  went  back  to  the  clubhouse  as  fast  as  we  could,  so  as  not  to 
get  caught  in  the  rain  which  was  at  that  time  coming  down  quite 
hard.  (Boiled  down:  We  raced  to  the  clubhouse,  to  escape  the 
pelting  rain.) 

Of  course  this  practice  in  boiling  down  will  remind  you  of  the 
telegram,  with  its  ten  words  so  packed  with  meaning  that  it  is 


!-6  ENGLISH  COMPOSITION 

frequently  unintelligible.     But  the  telegraphic  style  is  not  a  fault 
of  young  writers;   diffuseness  is  their  bane. 

A  second  great  abuse  of  words  lies  in  the  failure  to  grasp  their 
relation  as  parts  of  a  single  series,  which  can  be  compactly  handled 
in  a  parallel  structure. 

I  could  not  consent  to  do  anything  which  people  do  not  call  honest. 
Besides,  this  thing  you  propose  might  make  trouble  for  somebody, 
and  I  could  not  do  that.  And  then  I  don't  believe  that  my  father 
would  like  me  to  do  it,  anyhow,  and  I  don't  want  to  disobey  him. 
(Boiled  down :  I  will  neither  cheat,  make  trouble  for  my  friends,  nor 
disobey  my  father;  and  as  your  proposal  involves  all  these,  I  will 
not  act  upon  it.) 

Along  with  this  goes  the  overuse  of  the  verb  to  be  and  the  re- 
sultant wearisome  repetition  of  pronouns  and  other  words. 

He  was  very  young.  He  was  so  young  that  no  one  believed  that 
he  could  pass  the  exams.  But  although  he  was  so  young,  he  passed 
them.  This  was  because  he  was  so  well  prepared.  (Boiled  down  : 
Though  younger  than  other  candidates,  he  had  had  a  thorough  prep- 
aration, and  passed  without  difficulty.) 

Several  other  faults  may  be  dismissed  with  a  word  of  caution. 
The  overuse  of  the  word  one,  more  common  in  England  than  here, 
is  responsible  for  much  vague  phrasing.  The  first  person  pronoun 
is  perhaps  less  modest,  but  it  is  certainly  more  forcible,  and  modesty 
must  yield  to  force.  The  continual  use  of  passive  construction, 
where  active  construction  is  demanded,  is  to  blame  for  much  more 
lack  of  force.  Again,  while  intentional  repetition  produces  em- 
phasis, unconscious  repetition  brings  monotony  at  once.  By 
observing  variety  in  your  choice  of  words,  you  stimulate  the  reader's 
interest.  If  you  have  used  the  same  phrase  twice  on  a  page,  or 
a  single  word  more  than  three  times,  you  had  better  pause,  and 
take  variety  into  consideration,  as  a  factor  in  adding  force  to  your 
writing.  Unless  you  have  already  formed  the  habit  of  rereading 
what  you  have  written,  you  will  be  surprised  to  see  how  often  the 
same  phrase  will  crop  up  in  your  theme.  Once  in  your  mind,  it  is 
hard  to  keep  it  out.  Yet  you  must  remember,  that  every  uncon- 
scious repetition  weakens  the  force  of  the  first  presentation  of 
the  idea. 


THE  RIGHT   WORD  157 

The  sentence  below  illustrates  all  these  three  faults. 

If  one  is  interested  to  see  the  sights  of  the  city,  one  will  be  repaid 
by  the  sights  to  be  seen  at  the  corner  of  Worth  and  State  streets,  since 
more  people  are  seen  there  at  one  time,  and  an  interesting  sight  is 
thus  obtained. 

A  short  time  ago,  the  head  of  one  of  the  great  tunneling  com- 
panies in  this  country  tried  to  tell  a  society  of  mining  engineers 
about  rock-drilling  in  tunnels.  His  theme  was  speed  and  efficiency, 
yet  so  far  did  his  knowledge  of  composition  fall  short  of  his  techni- 
cal achievement,  that  he  took  an  hour  and  a  half  to  say  what  he 
had  been  invited  to  say  in  fifteen  minutes,  and  he  repeated  him- 
self till  his  audience  was  laughing  at  him.  The  man  who  followed 
him  had  only  fifteen  minutes  in  which  to  say  what  he  had  been 
invited  to  say  in  thirty ;  yet  so  admirably  did  he  compress  his  com- 
plicated exposition,  that  the  worn-out  audience  was  re-awakened, 
and  listened  eagerly,  and  understood.  The  difference  between 
the  two  lay  in  the  fact  that  the  latter  knew  what  words  counted, 
while  the  former  did  not. 

Just  as  a  rock  drill  of  narrow  bore  drives  deeper  into  the  rock 
than  a  larger  drill  with  the  same  force  behind  it,  so  a  word  of 
limited,  specific  meaning  drives  deeper  into  the  mind  than  a  word 
of  wide  application.  The  more  definite  a  word  is,  the  harder  it 
hits.  "He  lies"  is  more  forcible  than  "he  misstates  the  facts," 
since  the  inaccuracy  is  defined  as  intentional.  In  parts  of  the 
country  where  the  taking  of  human  life  is  not  greatly  regarded,  the 
word  "  murder  "  is  seldom  heard.  "  Killing"  is  vaguer,  and  im- 
plies no  motive.  A  banker  may  "appropriate  "the  funds  of  a  bank ; 
the  burglar  "robs."  The  banker's  family  prefer  the  less  defi- 
nite term;  but  the  rest  of  the  world,  and  the  law  in  particular, 
prefer  to  call  things  by  their  right  names. 

A  boy  might  write  in  a  letter,  "I  saw  a  big  automobile  win  the 
hill-climbing  contest  last  Saturday.  It  went  very  fast."  But  the 
reporter  for  the  "Auto  Era"  would  say,  "Mr.  Charles  Evans  in 
his  great  new  8-cylinder,  shaft-driven,  imported  Deauville,  with 
its  i3o-horse-power  motor  crackling  louder  than  a  dozen  Catlings, 
flared  like  a  comet  up  the  slope  in  53!  seconds,  breaking  the  record 
for  a  climb  of  this  grade."  The  specific  words  in  the  latter's 


!^8  ENGLISH  COMPOSITION 

account  would  carry  more  force  and  vividness  than  the  general 
words  in  the  boy's  letter. 

The  chief  difficulty  with  colloquial  phrases,  when  used  in  writing, 
is  that  they  are  not  specific  enough.  It  is"  all  very  well  to  say  of 
a  friend,  "He  is  very  good  fun."  The  expression  vaguely  in- 
dicates a  certain  companionableness  in  your  friend,  and  in  talk 
vagueness  will  pass.  But  a  reader  needs  to  know  more  than  this. 
He  must  know  wherein  the  friend  is  companionable,  how  he  differs 
from  others.  The  one  object  of  specification  is  to  separate  one 
thing  from  all  others  of  its  kind.  When  you  have  described  one 
man  in  a  crowd,  so  that  no  other  in  the  crowd  could  be  mistaken 
for  him,  then  you  are  specific.  And  it  is  the  specific  that  is  inter- 
esting; it  is  the  man  whose  words  mean  something  that  carries 
conviction. 

Some  writers  are  compelled  by  their  profession  to  use  words 
that  mean  little  or  nothing.  The  financial  column  of  any  news- 
paper will  give  you  all  the  examples  of  this  that  you  need.  The 
reporter  is,  you  see,  ignorant  of  the  underlying  forces  controlling  the 
movements  of  the  market,  but  he  must  at  all  costs  preserve  his  air 
of  omniscience.  The  result  is  not  infrequently  like  the  following :  — 

"Yesterday  was  the  first  day  since  May  15  —  three  weeks  ago 
to-morrow  —  on  which  the  stock  has  failed  to  reach  a  higher  price 
than  the  best  of  the  day  before.  The  fact  may  or  may  not  have 
a  bearing  on  the  programme  of  the  eminently  successful  gamble 
to  which  an  admiring  world  has  been  treated  in  the  interim. 
Predictions  about  immediate  results,  in  such  a  market  as  has  been 
stirred  up,  are  of  no  great  value ;  it  is  only  predictions  of  the  more 
distant  outcome  which  may  be  made  with  certainty.  However, 
all  people  familiar  with  Wall  Street  manipulation  know  what  it  is 
apt  to  mean  when  volume  of  trading  on  the  Stock  Exchange  is 
expanded  with  such  rapidity  as  in  the  past  few  days. 

"  Human  nature  is  such  that  the  fact  of  this  advance  will  instill 
in  many  minds  the  conviction  that  an  equally  large  further  ad- 
vance must  be  on  the  cards  —  a  method  of  inference  which  some- 
times turns  out  right,  sometimes  wrong,  which  is  always  a  curiosity 
of  logic,  which  serves  very  usefully  the  purposes  of  one  element 
in  the  personnel  of  a  speculative  market,  and  is  the  invariable 
Ditfall  of  another." 


THE  RIGHT   WORD  159 

If  the  reporter  had  dared  to  be  forcible  he  would  have  avoided 
pallid  words  like,  "may  or  may  not,"  "may  be  made,"  "what  it 
is  apt  to  mean,"  and  the  other  expressions  that  give  the  passage 
the  sound  of  a  Delphic  oracle.  He  dared  not  say,  "The  market 
will  fall  to-morrow,"  because  you  see  it  might  not,  though  in  that 
case  his  salary  would.  His  writing  was  cramped  by  circumstances, 
and  to  read  such  stuff  is  a  mere  waste  of  time. 

Fortunately  most  of  us  can  write  in  unequivocal  words,  what- 
ever we  have  to  say.  "Be  sure  you  are  right,  then  go  ahead." 
Don't  go  around,  you  see,  go  ahead. 

We  come  now  to  the  most  difficult  of  the  three  tests  of  the  ef- 
fective word,  Suggestive  Power.  Truth  depends  upon  exactness 
and  fidelity;  Force"  upon  the  amount  of  meaning  in  the  word; 
Suggestive  Power  depends  upon  what  the  word  calls  up  in  the  mind 
of  the  hearer,  or,  as  the  rhetorics  put  it,  upon  what  it  connotes. 

"  Please  present  yourself  before  the  Dean  at  three  o'clock  to-day." 
The  phrase  "the  Dean"  accurately  describes  a  person  whom  the 
student  knows;  it  means  to  him  a  man  intrusted  with  certain 
powers.  Truth  and  Force  stop  there ;  Suggestiveness  carries  him 
on.  The  student  may  have  been  before  the  Dean  on  a  previous 
occasion ;  if  so,  his  memory  will  recall  the  scene  with  painful  vivid- 
ness, and  awake  all  sorts  of  foreboding  for  the  future  interview. 
He  may  know  of  such  interviews  only  by  hearsay ;  if  so,  his  im- 
agination, aided  by  these  scraps  of  knowledge,  will  paint  for  him 
an  even  more  painful  picture.  The  suggestive  power  of  the  word 
"  Dean  "  depends  then  upon  its  association  with  ideas  already 
existing  in  the  mind  of  the  students,  and  upon  their  personal  rela- 
tions with  him,  —  upon  the  immediateness  of  the  appeal. 

The  reason  why  the  world  at  large  forgives  the  moderate  use 
of  slang  in  conversation,  is  that  all  slang  possesses  some  suggestive 
quality. 

"I  waited  anxiously  for  his  reply.  The  smile  that  preceded 
it  was  like  a  letter  from  home." 

In  themselves  the  last  four  words  are  not  slang,  but  the  sug- 
gestive quality  they  possess  has  caused  them  to  be  taken  up  as  a 
comparison  expressive  of  something  welcome,  and  this  overuse 
has  become  slang. 

On  the  other  hand,  you  must  remember  that  the  picturesqueness 


!6o  ENGLISH  COMPOSITION 

of  suggestion  contained  in  slang  vanishes  with  its  freshness,  and 
that  in  general  the  suggestive  quality  in  a  word  fades  away  with 
overuse.  Trite  comparisons  are  worse  than  none  at  all;  they 
suggest  nothing.  Such  phrases  as,  "He  ran  like  a  deer,"  are 
obviously  unsuggestive. 

The  two  examples  we  have  given  illustrate  the  two  types  of 
words  which  carry  suggestive  quality;  words  which  bring  up 
images  through  intimate  association,  and  words  which  bring  up 
ideas  and  images  through  the  medium  of  a  comparison.  To  the 
former  class  belong  such  words  as  country,  home,  honor.  Each 
of  these  is  full  of  suggestiveness,  since  it  brings  up  at  once  a  host 
of  ideas,  and  perhaps  a  definite  series  of  pictures,  within  the  mind. 
To  the  latter  class  belong  all  figures  of  speech,  and  particularly  the 
simile,  the  metaphor,  and  the  epithet. 

Now  in  conveying  suggestive  power  the  figure  is  tremendously 
more  effective  than  the  plain  word.  Its  strength  lies  in  the  fact 
that  it  sets  the  reader's  mind  at  work,  recalling  the  pictures  of  past 
experiences.  The  idea  created  by  the  reader's  mind  has  more 
effect  than  the  one  the  writer  gives  him.  But  in  proportion  as  it 
is  powerful,  it  is  dangerous  if  misused,  and  no  part  of  composition 
is  more  difficult  to  manage. 

The  great  danger  lies  in  the  fact  that  the  writer  frequently  does 
not  realize  the  force  of  his  comparison.  In  certain  novels  which 
we  have  all  read,  the  little  girl  bounds  to  her  mother's  side,  or  away 
from  it,  as  the  case  may  be.  But  she  always  bounds.  Now  all 
the  writer  intends  is  probably  a  light,  quick  little  run  like  the 
fawn's,  but  the  word  bound  suggests  more  than  that  to  the  reader. 
It  suggests  a  series  of  startled  leaps,  like  a  kangaroo's  or  a  spring- 
bok's. The  result  of  the  comparison  is  ridiculous.  All  mixed 
figures  are  to  be  avoided  for  the  same  reason,  —  that  realization 
of  them  involves  absurdity.  We  all  know  how  the  illustrator  of 
cheap  jokes  would  sketch  the  sentence, 

The  fair  girl  threw  a  scornful  eye  upon  him,  and  his  face  fell. 

Both  figures  are  suggestive  enough,  when  alone,  but  together  they 
make  nonsense.  The  student  who  wrote  the  next  example  sug- 
gested a  little  more  than  he  meant  to  say,  through  the  same 
fault. 


THE  RIGHT  WORD  l6l 

The  outcome  of  the  French  Revolution  was  too  much  for  Words- 
worth to  stomach. 

The  writer,  then,  must  realize  the  figure  first  of  all  for  himself, 
and  he  must  know  enough  of  his  reader  to  make  sure  how  that 
person  will  take  it,  if  he  would  forestall  the  laughter  that  is  certain 
to  attend  a  too  realistic  attempt. 

A  less  frequent  fault  in  choosing  figures  is  the  use  of  unfamiliar 
comparisons.  The  whole  point  of  a  figure  is  to  make  a  certain 
idea  vivid  by  the  suggestion  of  one  more  vivid  and  more  easily 
apprehended.  In  describing  a  Class  Day  at  a  girls'  college,  a 
student  wrote,  "The  campus  was  bright  with  as  many  colors  as 
a  swale  in  spring."  His  reader  wondered  what  kind  of  a  bush 
a  swale  was,  and  how  many  colors  a  swale  had,  until  he  looked  up 
the  word,  and  found  it  meant  a  low  damp  spot  in  a  meadow.  Only 
to  him  who  instantly  recognizes  your  comparison  can  it  possibly 
be  effective. 

A  figure  must  be  real,  it  must  come  from  familiar  life,  but  it 
does  not  need  to  be  in  all  respects  like  the  object  to  which  it  is 
applied.  One  point  of  similarity  is  sufficient,  and,  indeed,  the 
more  it  differs  in  other  respects,  the  more  striking  is  the  figure. 
But  the  differences  should  not  be  emphasized;  they  must  be  left 
to  the  reader's  imagination.  The  essential  thing  is  the  immediate 
perception  of  the  single  point  of  likeness.  One  simile  will  illustrate 
what  is  meant. 

As  the  exhausted  prize-fighter  sat  on  his  second's  knee,  his  head 
dangled  about  like  a  poppy  in  a  shower. 

Now  there  could  be  nothing  more  unlike  in  other  respects  than 
a  prize-fighter  and  a  poppy ;  but  there  was  in  this  case  an  immediate 
and  real  resemblance,  and  the  reporter  was  keen  enough  to  see  it. 
Success  in  the  use  of  figures  depends  chiefly  upon  the  keen  ob- 
servation of  interesting  experiences,  and  upon  the  ability  to  recall 
these  observations  at  the  proper  time,  for  the  purposes  of  a  com- 
parison. Only  one  who  had  seen  a  poppy  in  a  shower,  and  noted 
the  odd  effect  of  its  dangling  head,  could  have  recalled  it  for  use 
in  a  figure  at  the  proper  time.  To  a  minor  degree,  success  depends 
upon  not  forcing  the  comparison.  This  latter  fault  comes  usually 
from  too  frequent  employment  of  the  figure.  The  common  and 


!62  ENGLISH  COMPOSITION 

violent  figures  of  the  writers  of  the  cheap  sensationalism  of  to-day 
form  the  worst  possible  models  for  the  one  who  is  learning  to  write. 
He  had  better  avoid  any  figure,  than  follow  their  example.  An 
extravagant  metaphor  may  be  funny  once,  but  its  point  dulls 
quickly.  It  is  neither  spontaneous  nor  natural,  and  it  cannot  help 
us  in  our  search  for  the  right  word. 

Finally,  you  will  remember  that  all  composition,  whether  written 
or  oral,  is  addressed  to  the  ear.  Even  in  forms  of  composition 
intended  only  for  the  reader  this  fact  must  be  taken  into  account. 
Every  reader,  as  he  reads,  thinks  more  or  less  about  the  sound 
of  the  words  he  is  reading.  It  is  naturally  impossible  in  such 
a  book  as  this  to  go  into  any  discussion  as  to  what  constitutes 
euphony.  Two  things  we  may  say:  that  harsh  combinations 
affect  the  ear  unpleasantly,  and  that  the  same  sound  repeated 
at  too  close  intervals  is  similarly  offensive.  When  old  Bishop 
Douglas  talked  of  "thick  drumly  scuggis,"  and  "ragged  rolkis  of 
hard  harsk  whin-stane,"  and  the  like,  he  was  justified  in  devising 
such  hideous  combinations  by  the  fact  that  he  was  trying  to  tell 
of  a  fierce  winter  storm.  The  sound  fitted  the  sense.  Otherwise, 
harsh  sounds  could  never  be  good  form  in  writing.  When  Sir 
Francis  Bacon  writes,  in  his  translation  of  Psalm  104, 

There  hast  them  set  the  great  Leviathan 

That  makes  the  seas  to  seethe  like  boiling  pan, 

the  reader  at  once  notices  the  disagreeable  sound  of  too  many 
j's  and  e's  in  the  second  line.  The  lines  are  bad  poetry,  and 
worse  prose.  Other  lines  of  his  in  the  same  translation  are  equally 
bad,  from  the  same  fault.  A  typical  one  is  the  following :  — 

Plaining  or  chirping  through  their  warblwg  throats. 

Your  ear  alone  can  tell  you  why  a  combination  like  "  a  deep  sleep  " 
is  not  offensive,  and  why  "the  heart-breaking  leave-taking"  is 
distinctly  so.  But  do  not  be  a  poet,  unless  you  know  it. 

Not  only  is  a  succession  of  like  sounds  to  be  avoided,  except 
under  special  conditions,  such  as  alliteration;  but  a  succession  of 
sentences  of  like  structure  should  be  avoided,  except  under  special 
conditions,  such  as  the  intentional  use  of  Parallel  Structure  for 
emphasis. 


THE   RIGHT  WORD  163 

The  right  word,  in  short,  must  be  felt  in  sound  and  sense  alike 
to  belong  to  the  sentence,  to  be  indispensable  to  a  proper  under- 
standing of  its  meaning.  If  it  has  satisfied  the  demands  of  Good 
Use,  that  it  shall  be  neither  slangy,  colloquial,  dialectal,  foreign, 
pompous,  nor  archaic ;  if  it  has  been  tested  for  effectiveness  by 
the  standard  of  Truth,  the  scales  of  Force,  and  the  touchstone 
of  Suggestiveness,  and  has  not  been  rejected,  it  is  thenceforward 
entitled  to  all  the  rights  and  privileges  that  appertain  to  an  active 
and  honorable  member,  in  full  standing,  of  the  Sentence.  But  the 
rights  carry  with  them  a  real  responsibility.  Only  when  in  its 
complicated  framework  the  word  does  easily  and  without  ap- 
pearance of  strain  the  work  that  it  is  given  to  do,  can  it  be  called 
the  Right  Word  in  the  Right  Place. 


PART   II 
ARGUMENTATION 

CHAPTER  VIII 

THE   BRIEF 

ARGUMENTATION  is  closely  related  to  Exposition,  and  all  ar- 
gument contains  more  or  less  material  that  is  simply  expository. 
However,  all  writing  (and  speaking  also)  1  which  is  called  argu- 
ment differs  from  pure  Exposition  in  one  very  important  respect. 
Exposition  explains  something  which  the  audience  are  willing  to 
admit  as  true,  but  which  they  do  not  yet  understand;  argument 
tries  to  make  them  admit  as  true  something  which  they  do  not  yet 
believe  to  be  so,  and  it  usually  deals  with  a  subject  which  the 
audience  already  understand  fairly  well,  else  they  would  not  have 
opinions  about  it.  That  is,  the  difference  between  Exposition 
and  Argument  is  not  so  much  in  the  material  they  use  as  in  the 
purpose  or  aim  for  which  they  use  it.  For  example,  if  you  should 
explain  to  a  friend  the  machinery  of  your  bicycle  simply  to  make 
clear  to  him  how  it  works,  your  talk  would  be  Exposition.  If, 
however,  you  should  explain  the  machinery  of  this  wheel  in  order 
to  persuade  him  to  buy  one  of  the  same  type,  for  which  you  are 
agent,  then  your  talk  would  be  Argument.  The  material  used  in 
both  cases  would  be  largely  the  same ;  but  the  purpose  for  which 
you  used  this  material  would  be  different.  In  the  first  case  you 
are  trying  to  explain  something;  in  the  second  you  are  trying  to 
persuade  the  man  to  do  something. 

In  practical  writing  it  is  best,  unless  you  have  had  years  of  ex- 
perience, to  draw  up  an  outline  for  a  theme  before  actually  writing 
the  theme.  In  Argumentation  we  make  for  this  purpose  a  special 

1  The  material  in  the  following  chapter  will,  it  is  believed,  hold  equally 
true  of  either  oral  or  written  argument. 
164 


THE   BRIEF  165 

form  of  outline,  called  a  brief.  A  brief  is  a  kind  of  outline,  but 
every  outline  is  not  a  brief  by  any  means;  consequently  the 
reader  should  notice  carefully  what  we  are  about  to  say  concerning 
briefing,  and  should  never  make  the  mistake  of  thinking  that  any 
ordinary  outline  will  answer  the  purpose  of  a  carefully  drawn 
brief. 

In  drawing  up  a  good  brief  there  are  three  distinct  steps,  (a)  In 
the  first  place,  you  must  form  a  clear  idea  in  your  own  mind  of 
just  what  you  are  to  prove,  and  must  express  this  in  the  form  of 
a  single  sentence.  This  step  is  called  "phrasing  the  proposition," 
and  the  resulting  sentence  is  called  the  Proposition  or  Resolution. 
This  sentence,  or  resolution  which  you  are  upholding,  should 
always  be  written  at  the  top  of  your  brief,  (b)  In  the  second 
place,  you  will  need,  at  the  beginning  of  your  completed  essay,  one 
or  two  paragraphs  of  pure  Exposition  explaining  what  the  facts 
of  the  question  are,  before  you  begin  to  argue  about  it.  You  will 
not  write  these  paragraphs  in  full  yet,  but  will  simply  draw  up 
a  skeleton  outline  of  them.  This  outline  should  be  written  directly 
below  the  resolution,  and  is  called  the  Introduction  to  the  brief. 
(c)  Thirdly,  you  must  form  a  clear  idea  in  your  own  mind  of  just 
how  you  are  to  prove  the  above  resolution.  Your  scheme  of  proof 
should  be  put  on  paper  in  outline  according  to  a  special  system 
which  will  be  explained  later.  This  part  is  called  the  Body  of  the 
Brief,  or  the  Brief  Proper. 

We  will  take  up  each  of  these  three  steps  in  detail. 

I.  PHRASING  THE  PROPOSITION 

To  phrase  the  proposition  is  to  express  in  a  single  sentence  the 
exact  point  which  you  are  trying  to  prove.  This  proposition  should 
always  be  a  complete  sentence,  never  a  mere  word  or  phrase. 
For  instance,  if  you  wrote  down  as  your  resolution  "The  evils  of 
divorce,"  nobody  would  know  what  you  meant  to  prove  about  the 
evils  of  divorce.  No  one  could  say  whether  you  meant  to  prove 
that  they  are  important  or  unimportant,  whether  they  demand 
action  or  not.  But  if  you  write  a  complete  sentence,  "The  evils 
of  divorce  call  for  immediate  legislation,"  then  you  have  stated  one 
definite  point  which  can  be  proved  or  disproved. 


!66  ENGLISH  COMPOSITION 

Not  only  must  your  resolution  be  a  sentence,  but  it  must  also 
be  a  sentence  which  expresses  exactly  what  you  propose  to  prove, 
no  more  and  no  less.  In  writing  this  sentence,  a  man  should 
analyze  his  ideas  carefully,  for  he  will  often  find  his  own  mind  sur- 
prisingly hazy  as  to  just  what  he  is  trying  to  prove.  For  instance, 
many  a  man  would  write  at  the  top  of  his  brief,  "Football  is  good," 
and  think  that  this  sentence  was  perfectly  satisfactory.  It  is  not 
so  at  all.  In  the  first  place,  what  does  he  mean  by  "football  "? 
Football  as  played  by  college  men  might  be  good,  when  football 
played  by  half-grown  boys  would  be  bad.  In  the  second  place, 
what  does  he  mean  by  "good"?  Good  for  whom?  A  sport  may 
be  good  for  the  players,  good  for  the  on-lookers  to  watch,  or  good 
as  a  means  of  developing  college  spirit;  and  a  game  might  be 
good  in  one  of  these  ways  without  being  good  in  the  remaining 
two.  However,  if  the  sentence  had  been  written,  "Intercollegiate 
football  is  good  for  the  players,"  it  would  have  stated  just  what 
the  author  meant  to  prove,  no  more  and  no  less,  and  thus  would 
have  been  correct. 

II.  THE  INTRODUCTION  TO  THE  BRIEF 

The  aim  of  the  introduction  is  to  clear  up  the  ground  before 
the  real  argument  begins.  You  must  remember  that  your  readers 
(or  audience,  as  the  case  may  be)  know  much  less  about  the  ques- 
tion than  you  do.  Consequently,  in  order  that  they  may  follow 
your  subsequent  reasoning  intelligently,  you  must  give  them  cer- 
tain facts  in  the  case,  before  you  begin  to  argue  about  the  conclu- 
sions to  be  drawn  from  those  facts. 

Just  how  much  should  be  told  in  the  introduction  will  depend 
partly  on  the  question  and  partly  on  your  audience.  The  more 
complicated  the  subject  and  the  more  ignorant  the  audience,  the 
more  full  your  introduction  will  have  to  be.  There  are,  however, 
certain  things  which  your  hearers  should  always  know  thoroughly 
when  you  have  finished  your  introduction,  whether  they  learned  it 
from  that  or  knew  it  beforehand.  For  one  thing,  they  should 
understand,  in  its  main  features  at  least,  the  past  history  of  the 
subject  involved  and  the  present  state  of  affairs.  You  would  not 
think,  for  example,  of  beginning  to  argue  for  a  change  in  the  tariff 


THE   BRIEF  167 

until  your  audience  understood  thoroughly  what  the  tariff  at  present 
is.  Secondly,  your  audience  must  know  just  what  the  question  or 
resolution  means.  If  you  are  arguing  for  a  change  in  the  tariff, 
you  must  explain  just  what  changes  you  advocate  and  on  what 
articles  the  changes  are  to  be  made.  If  you  are  arguing  for  the 
honor  system  in  your  school,  you  must  explain  precisely  what  the 
honor  system  is  which  you  are  upholding.  In  the  third  place,  you 
should  state  clearly  and  precisely  what  the  points  are  on  which 
you  disagree  with  the  men  of  the  other  side.  In  most  live  questions 
you  will  find  certain  points  on  which  all  people  agree,  and  others  on 
which  different  minds  clash.  For  example',  all  thinking  men  would 
agree  that  intercollegiate  football  has  certain  faults;  but  they 
might  disagree  as  to  whether  the  good  points  outweigh  the  bad 
ones  or  vice  versa.  Consequently,  if  you  were  arguing  that  inter- 
collegiate football  is  good  for  the  players,  you  would  say  in  your 
introduction  that  the  question  was  not  whether  or  not  football 
had  faults,  but  that  the  point  at  issue  was,  Does  football  have  good 
qualities  enough  to  outweigh  its  faults?  When  you  have  said 
this  you  have  finished  your  introduction ;  and  as  soon  as  you  begin 
to  prove  that  the  good  points  really  do  more  than  counterbalance 
the  bad,  you  are  starting  in  on  your  brief  proper. 

Always  remember,  however,  that  the  great  aim  of  your  intro- 
duction is  to  prepare  your  audience  for  what  follows,  and  that  you 
are  to  include  or  exclude  material  accordingly.  No  argument 
should  be  brought  into  it.  Its  purpose,  as  just  stated,  shows  that 
it  should  be  pure  exposition.  It  states  what  the  facts  are  and 
what  stand  you  propose  to  take  as  to  these  facts  in  your  subsequent 
reasoning. 

As  we  are  not  yet  writing  out  our  full  essay,  we  will  simply  make 
a  skeleton  outline  of  our  introductory  points  here.  This  is  the 
introduction  of  our  brief.  For  the  question  on  intercollegiate 
football  it  might  be  written  as  follows :  — 

INTRODUCTION 

I.  The  subject  is  an  important  one  at  present. 

A.  It  involves  the  interests  of  thousands  of  young  men. 

B.  It  is  having  a  marked  influence  on  our  educational  problems. 


j68  ENGLISH  COMPOSITION 

II.  The  past  history  of  football  gives  us  a  fair  basis  of  facts  from  which 
to  argue  about  it. 

A.  It  has  been  in  the  country  for  years. 

B.  It  has  been  taken  up  by  practically  every  college  in  the  country. 
III.  In  arguing  for  football  we  do  not  deny  that  it  has  faults. 

A.  We  admit  that  it  has  numerous  minor  evils. 

B.  We  maintain  simply  that  its  good  points  far  outweigh  its  defects. 

III.  THE  BODY  OF  THE  BRIEF 

Now  that  you  have  phrased  your  proposition  and  cleared  the 
ground  by  your  preliminary  explanation,  you  are  ready  for  your 
third  step  in  briefing.  This  consists  of  gathering  and  arranging 
in  order  the  arguments  by  which  you  are  to  prove  your  proposition. 
These  arguments  are  arranged  in  an  outline  according  to  a  simple 
but  important  principle.  The  main  idea  of  this  part  of  your  brief 
is  that  it  should  be  a  map  of  the  relations  of  your  ideas  to  each 
other. 

Perhaps  the  simplest  way  of  explaining  this  outline  of  your 
argument  would  be  to  compare  it  to  a  scaffolding  or  old-fashion 
railroad  trestle.  A  cross  section  of  a  railroad  trestle  1  looks 
something  like  the  diagram  on  the  opposite  page  (Fig.  i). 
Now,  the  main  aim  of  this  whole  trestle  is  simply  to  support  the 
central  track,  so  that  trains  can  run  over  it.  In  the  same  way, 
the  whole  aim  of  your  argument  is  to  uphold  one  central  point,  — 
that  is,  the  main  proposition  that  you  are  trying  to  prove.  Further, 
this  track  rests  upon  two  or  three  posts  immediately  under  it. 
Similarly,  your  main  proposition  rests  upon  two  or  three  main 
points.  For  example,  if  your  main  proposition  is  that  foot- 
ball is  good  for  the  players,  this  rests  upon  the  three  main  argu- 
ments that  it  is  good  for  them  physically,  good  for  them  mentally, 
and  good  for  them  morally.  Now,  those  two  or  three  top  posts 
in  your  railroad  trestle  did  not  reach  down  to  the  ground ;  con- 
sequently, they  had  to  have  other  posts  under  them  supporting 
them.  Likewise,  your  three  points  about  football  must  them- 
selves rest  on  other  points  which  prove  that  they  are  true.  If 

1  Of  course,  some  details  of  an  actual  railroad  trestle  are  omitted.  The 
comparison  is  used  merely  to  explain  the  brief. 


THE  BRIEF 


169 


football  is  good  physically,  mentally,  and  morally,  then  it  is  a  good 
thing;  but  each  of  these  points  must  have  some  aubpoints  under 
it  to  prove  it.  So  we  can  make  a  trestle  for  our  argument  like  our 
railroad  trestle,  one  that  will  support  our  main  proposition  at  the 


II  ..  II 


II      II 


top  and  reach  down  at  the  bottom  to  the  bedrock  of  facts  or  strong 
evidence.     It  would  stand  something  like  Fig.  2  "(Page  170). 

It  will  be  seen  here  that  each  point  in  the  first  or  top  row  proves 
the  main  proposition ;  that  each  point  in  the  second  row  proves  the 
point  in  the  first  row  under  which  it  stands;  and  that  each  point 
in  the  third  row  proves  the  point  in  the  second  row  above  it.  The 
fact  that  a  player  spends  all  his  afternoons  at  the  athletic  field 
proves  that  he  is  kept  out  in  the  open  air;  the  fact  that  he  is  kept 
out  in  the  open  air  helps  to  prove  that  football  is  good  for  him 
physically;  and  the  fact  that  it  is  good  for  him  physically  helps 
to  prove  that  it  is  a  good  thing  for  him  as  a  whole.  It  will  also  be 
seen  that  all  the  points  in  the  bottom  row  are  so  obviously  true  that 
nobody  would  dispute  them.  Consequently,  these  form  a  solid 
foundation  on  which  the  entire  trestle  of  our  argument  can  rest 


170 


ENGLISH  COMPOSITION 


firmly.  This  is  the  whole  idea  of  a  brief :  to  base  our  main  prop- 
osition on  certain  points,  then  rest  these  on  other  points,  and  so 
on,  until  we  reach  points  at  the  bottom,  on  which  the  whole  argu- 


&xff 


It  is  a  dangerous 
game. 


They  need  skill 
in  each  man. 


Lnexpected  plays 
are  alw.ays 
happening. 


The  variety  of 
slays  developes 


hey  spend  their 
ntire  afternoons 
at  the  field. 


ment  rests,  and  which  seem  so  true  that  they  themselves  need  no 
further  support. 


THE  BRIEF  171 

A  framework  like  the  above  should  underlie  every  good  argu- 
ment. In  practice,  however,  it  is  almost  never  written  in  the  above 
form.  Instead,  it  is  written  in  a  scheme  like  the  following,  with 
each  subpoint  under  the  main  point  which  it  proves. 

I.  Football  is  good  for  the  players  physically,  for 

A.  It  keeps  the  men  out  in  the  open  air,  for 

(i)  They  spend  every  afternoon  at  the  athletic  field. 

B.  It  requires  a  healthy  diet,  for 

(1)  The  athlete  cannot  eat  pastry,  and 

(2)  He  cannot  eat  between  meals. 

Now  we  can  draw  up  our  whole  brief  on  football,  as  follows : 1  — 

PROPOSITION 
Resolved,  that  intercollegiate  football  is  good  for  the  players. 

INTRODUCTION 

I.  The  subject  is  an  important  one  at  present. 

A.  It  involves  the  interests  of  thousands  of  young  men. 

B.  It  is  having  a  marked  influence  on  our  educational  problems. 
II.  The  past  history  of  football  gives  us  a  fair  basis  of  facts  from  which 

to  argue  about  it. 

A.  It  has  been  in  the  country  for  years. 

B.  It  has  been  taken  up  by  practically  every  college  in  the  country. 
HI.  In  arguing  for  football  we  do  not  deny  that  it  has  faults. 

A.  We  admit  that  it  has  numerous  minor  evils. 

B.  We  argue  simply  that  its  good  points  far  outweigh  its  defects. 

1  If  a  real  trestle  stands  on   uneven  ground,  some  of  the  supports  will 
have  to  go  farther  down  than  others   to  reach  ground,   and  will   need  an 
extra  tier  of  posts.     In  the  same  way  one  main  point  in  a  brief  may  have 
more  tiers  of  argument  than  another. 
One  might  go 

I. 

(i) 

and  stop  at  (i),  while  another  in  the  same  brief  might  stand 
I. — 
A.— 

(i) 

(a) 


!72  ENGLISH  COMPOSITION 

BRIEF  PROPER 

I.  Football  is  good  for  the  players  physically,  for 

A.  It  keeps  the  men  out  in  the  open  air,  for 

(i)  They  spend  every  afternoon  at  the  athletic  field. 

B.  It  requires  a  healthy  diet,  for 

(1)  The  athlete  cannot  eat  pastry,  and 

(2)  He  cannot  eat  between  meals. 

C.  It  develops  the  muscles,  for 

(i)  The  variety  of  plays  develops  the  whole  body. 
II.  It  is  good  for  the  players  mentally,  for 

A.  It  makes  men  think  quickly,  for 

(i)  Unexpected  plays  are  always  happening. 

B.  It  makes  the  men  resourceful,  for 

(1)  They  need  variety  of  plays,  and 

(2)  They  need  skill  in  each  separate  man. 
III.  It  is  good  for  the  players  morally,  for 

A.  It  develops  courage,  for 

(i)  It  is  a  dangerous  game. 

B.  It  teaches  self-control,  for 

(1)  A  man  must  not  be  offside,  and 

(2)  A  man  must  obey  the  umpire. 

CONCLUSION 

Since  football  helps  the  players  physically,  mentally,  and  morally, 
it  is  a  good  thing  and  should  be  encouraged. 

Remarks  on  the  Brief.  Theoretically  the  brief  consists  of  three 
parts :  the  introduction,  the  brief  proper,  and  the  conclusion.  The 
conclusion,  which,  theoretically,  is  the  third  main  division  of  the 
brief,  is  practically  a  mere  matter  of  form,  stating  clearly  just  what 
you  have  proved. 

In  drawing  up  a  brief,  there  are  certain  cautions  which  you  must 
always  bear  in  mind.  In  the  first  place,  you  must  be  very  careful 
to  see  that  every  subpoint  proves  the  main  point  under  which  it 
stands.  As  a  check  on  this,  every  point  which  is  followed  by  a 
subpoint  proving  it  should  end  with  for  or  because.  If  for  or 
because  here  does  not  make  sense,  there  is  something  wrong  with 
your  brief.  For  the  same  reason  the  word  therefore  should  never 


THE   BRIEF  173 

be  used.  The  very  word  therefore  implies  that  you  are  bringing 
in  a  main  point  or  conclusion  after  the  minor  point  or  evidence 
which  proves  it;  and  this  in  briefing  is  wrong.  It  is  like  putting 
the  track  in  a  railroad  trestle  under  its  supports  instead  of  above 
them.  If  you  could  use  the  word  therefore  at  any  point  in  your 
brief  and  make  sense,  then  your  brief  is  not  properly  drawn. 

In  the  second  place,  every  point  in  the  brief  should  be  a  complete 
sentence,  never  a  mere  word  or  phrase.  The  reasons  for  this  are 
the  same  as  the  reasons  which  require  that  the  proposition  at  the 
head  of  your  brief  should  be  a  sentence.  If  you  phrase  a  point 
"open  air,"  nobody  knows  what  you  mean  about  open  air;  but 
if  you  say,  "Football  keeps  a  man  out  in  the  open  air,"  then  you 
have  made  a  point,  and  everybody  knows  just  what  it  is. 

In  the  third  place,  your  most  important  point  should  be  put  last 
for  Emphasis,  just  as  in  the  outline  of  an  expository  theme. 

Testing  the  Brief  as  Argument.  We  have  now  finished  all  the 
details  of  properly  drawing  up  a  brief,  as  far  as  the  form  goes. 
But  before  we  actually  write  it  out,  we  ought  also  to  test  it  as  argu- 
ment. At  bottom,  we  are  working,  not  simply  to  conform  to 
certain  rules  of  rhetoric,  but  to  convince  intelligent  men ;  and  in 
order  that  we  may  convince  them,  we  must  be  sure  that  our  argu- 
ment is  not  only  properly  briefed  but  also  calculated  to  convince. 

The  first  caution  needed  under  this  head  is  that  a  brief  should 
not  have  too  many  main  points.  A  greater  number  than  four  or 
five  is  usually  undesirable,  as  the  reader  is  unable  to  keep  them 
clearly  in  his  mind,  and  consequently  does  not  get  the  full  force  of 
what  you  are  saying.  As  a  general  thing  some  points  are  much 
stronger  than  others.  If  you  find  that  your  brief  has  eight  or  ten 
main  heads,  you  will  do  well  to  cut  out  some  of  the  weaker  ones 
altogether.  The  great  gain  in  clearness  will  far  outweigh  the 
slight  loss  in  argument.  It  is  not  the  number  of  points  which  you 
make  but  the  number  of  points  which  your  readers  clearly  remem- 
ber that  determine  how  far  you  have  convinced  them;  and  you 
must  remember  that  the  sole  aim  of  argument  is  to  convince  your 
readers  that  you  are  right.  Frequently  also  you  will  be  able  to 
combine  two  points  into  one  by  making  them  subheads  under  one 
new  main  head.  For  instance,  the  two  points  that  football  de- 
velops courage  and  that  it  develops  self-control  can  both  be  com- 


I74  ENGLISH  COMPOSITION 

bined  under  the  one  head  that  it  develops  a  man  morally.  This 
should  always  be  done  when  possible,  as  it  makes  the  outline  of 
your  argument  much  easier  to  remember. 

The  second  caution  is  that  you  should  have  actual  evidence  or 
proof  to  support  every  point  that  you  make.  Evidence  is  the 
lower  part  in  the  trestle  of  your  argument;  and  if  it  is  weak  or 
insufficient,  your  whole  fabric  will  tumble  at  a  touch.  Young  men 
are  apt  to  assert  a  series  of  statements  without  proof,  and  think 
they  are  arguing.  They  will  say  that  the  honor  system  should  be 
tried  because  the  men  will  be  too  honest  to  cheat  under  it;  and 
then  will  not  bring  forward  one  scrap  of  evidence,  aside  from  their 
own  opinion,  to  show  that  the  men  will  be  so  honest.  This  is 
not  arguing.  No  intelligent  man  will  be  persuaded  by  you  until 
you  show  him  a  solid  foundation  for  your  assertions.  There  are 
many  different  kinds  of  evidence;  but  definite  evidence  of  some 
kind  you  must  have.  You  must  reason  and  prove,  not  merely 
assert. 

Not  only  must  you  have  evidence,  but  you  must  also  analyze  this 
evidence  carefully  and  see  that  it  will  stand  investigation.  Any 
argument  is  almost  certain  to  rouse  more  or  less  antagonism ;  and 
your  opponents  will  examine  your  points  with  microscopes  and 
pick  out  every  flaw.  If  you  have  arguments  that  sound  well  at 
first  but  are  weak  at  bottom,  these  enemies  will  show  this  to  every- 
body and  make  you  ridiculous.  We  have  already  compared  an 
argument  to  a  trestle ;  we  might  also  compare  it  to  a  battleship. 
The  best  battleship  is  not  that  one  which  makes  the  finest  show 
when  it  is  launched,  but  that  one  which  can  stand  the  most  bang- 
ing. In  the  same  way,  the  best  argument  is  not  always  that  which 
sounds  the  most  impressive  at  first ;  but  that  argument  is  best  which 
is  so  fortified  with  proof  that  your  enemies  can  hammer  and  hammer 
at  it,  and  still  not  be  able  to  shatter  it.  Consequently,  you  should 
make  sure  that  your  own  evidence  is  sound  before  you  expose  it 
to  hostile  fire. 

Before  we  can  accumulate  evidence  or  test  its  value  properly, 
we  must  consider  some  of  the  more  usual  forms  which  it  takes. 
One  very  common  form  of  it  is  what  is  known  as  "testimonial 
evidence."  This  consists  in  grounding  your  arguments  on  the  fact 
that  somebody  said  such  and  such  things  were  so.  If  a  lawyer 


THE  BRIEF  175 

tries  to  prove  the  innocence  of  his  client  by  the  testimony  of  some 
witness  who  saw  another  man  commit  the  murder,  he  is  using 
one  form  of  testimonial  evidence,  the  form  in  which  the  witness 
asserts  a  fact.  If  a  debater  is  arguing  that  a  certain  law  is  unjust, 
and  quotes  a  statement  to  that  effect  from  some  prominent  states- 
man, then  he  is  using  the  second  form  of  testimonial  evidence,  in 
which  the  man  quoted  states  not  a  fact,  but  an  opinion.  Either 
form,  if  it  will  stand  analysis,  is  strong.  If  a  man  actually  saw 
Jones  commit  the  murder,  no  jury  would  hang  Smith.  If  one  of 
the  wisest  statesmen  in  the  country  thinks  a  law  unjust,  most  men 
would  hesitate  long  before  disagreeing  with  him.  But  will  this 
evidence  stand  analysis?  Did  the  witness  actually  see  Jones  do 
the  shooting,  or  is  he  lying  about  it?  Was  the  man  who  pro- 
nounced the  law  unjust  really  a  great  statesman  whose  opinion  you 
would  respect;  or  was  he  only  a  conceited  demagogue  whose 
views  on  the  subject  are  worthless  ?  Obviously  the  whole  value 
of  this  class  of  evidence  depends  on  the  character  of  the  witness 
himself.  If  he  is  reliable,  you  can  include  his  statements,  and  your 
opponents  will  have  to  respect  them ;  if  he  is  not  reliable,  you  must 
omit  the  whole  thing  from  your  brief  and  argument. 

There  are  three  tests  which  you  should  always  apply  to  testi- 
monial evidence:  Was  the  speaker  mentally  competent?  Was 
he  morally  trustworthy?  Were  his  statements  or  opinions  un- 
biased by  any  personal  prejudice?  If  all  three  of  these  can  be 
answered  in  the  affirmative,  the  evidence  is  sound ;  if  they  cannot, 
it  is  weak.  The  statement  of  a  witness  that  Jones  did  the  killing 
would  have  little  value  if  the  witness  was  mentally  incompetent 
at  the  time  through  drunkenness,  if  he  was  morally  untrust- 
worthy because  he  was  a  notorious  liar,  or  if  his  judgment  was 
biased  by  his  friendship  for  the  accused.  The  declaration  by 
a  statesman  that  a  law  was  unjust  would  be  worthless  if  the  man 
was  not  well  informed  on  the  subject,  if  he  was  an  unprincipled 
politician,  or  if  he  was  personally  interested  in  some  business 
which  suffered  from  this  particular  law. 

Another  form  of  evidence,  very  useful  but  also  very  dangerous, 
is  generalization.  This  consists  in  arguing  that  a  certain  thing 
is  true  generally  because  you  have  seen  that  it  is  true  in  particular 
cases.  For  example,  you  might  argue  that  the  negro  race  could 


Xy6  ENGLISH  COMPOSITION 

produce  great  men  by  citing  several  cases  where  it  had  done  so, 
in  the  lives  of  Frederick  Douglas,  Booker  Washington,  etc.  The 
danger  with  this  reasoning  is  that  a  man  .may  base  his  general 
conclusion  on  too  few  particular  cases.  There  are  exceptions  to 
all  rules.  If  you  have  a  great  many  cases  to  prove  your  point, 
these  must  represent  the  rule ;  but  if  you  have  only  a  few,  they 
might  represent  the  exceptions,  and  your  conclusions  might  be 
all  wrong.  Some  time  ago  a  certain  class  in  English  Composition 
discovered  that  three  men  had  passed  the  course  the  preceding 
year  without  doing  any  work.  By  the  process  of  generalization 
the  class  somewhat  too  hastily  concluded  from  these  few  cases 
that  any  man  could  pass  English  Composition  without  working. 
When  they  failed  at  the  end  of  the  year,  they  realized  that  there 
was  something  wrong  in  their  reasoning.  The  three  men  who 
had  passed  were  exceptions  to  the  rule,  not  representative  of  it. 
On  the  other  hand,  when  you  argue  that  yellow  fever  is  due  to  the 
bite  of  a  mosquito  because  this,  has  been  known  to  be  true  in 
hundreds  of  cases,  then  your  conclusion  is  sound ;  for  these  cases 
are  so  numerous  that  they  must  represent  the  rule  and  not  the 
exceptions. 

Generalization  at  the  present  time  works  largely  through 
statistics.  If  you  can  show  by  figures  that  the  majority  of  German 
immigrants  amass  wealth  and  that  very  few  of  them  are  brought 
into  our  criminal  courts,  you  can  safely  draw  the  general  conclusion 
that  German  immigrants  are  desirable.  It  should  be  mentioned 
in  passing,  however,  that  statistics,  which  from  one  point  of  view 
are  a  form  of  generalization,  from  another  standpoint  are  testi- 
monial evidence  and  should  be  submitted  to  the  same  tests.  If 
a  learned  doctor  in  a  magazine  article  gives  a  table  of  statistics, 
compiled  by  himself,  to  show  that  alcoholic  neuritis  is  increasing, 
you  have  nothing  but  his  word  to  prove  that  those  figures  are  true. 
Hence,  considering  statistics  as  testimonial  evidence,  you  must 
ask  whether  or  not  the  man  who  compiled  them  was  competent, 
honest,  and  unprejudiced.  At  the  same  time,  considering  them 
as  a  form  of  generalization,  you  must  decide  whether  or  not  they 
cover  cases  enough  to  warrant  a  general  conclusion. 

A  third  type  of  evidence  is  based  on  the  relation  of  cause  and 
effect.  We  feel  universally  that  there  must  be  a  cause  for  every 


THE   BRIEF  177 

effect  and  an  effect  for  every  cause.  Things  do  not  happen  with- 
out a  reason  why,  and  you  cannot  do  this  or  that  without  feeling 
the  consequences.  Hence  when  a  certain  effect  is  known  and  its 
cause  is  unknown,  you  can  argue  from  the  known  effect  to  the 
probable  cause.  A  certain  town  is  ravaged  by  typhoid  fever; 
this  is  the  known  effect.  The  cause  of  this  fever  is  at  first  un- 
known; but  since  the  drainage  of  the  town  is  bad  and  since  bad 
drainage  is  a  common  cause  of  typhoid,  you  can  put  two  and  two 
together  and  conclude  that  the  drainage  must  be  the  cause  of  the* 
fever.  In  the  same  way,  you  can  argue  from  a  known  cause 
to  a  probable  effect.  "If  you  drive  your  auto  so  fast,  some  day 
you  will  have  an  accident."  Here  the  cause,  the  fast  driving,  is  a 
known  fact ;  and  the  speaker  is  arguing  that  an  accident  will  be  the 
probable  result  as  an  accident  is  usually  the  effect  produced  by  this 
cause.  In  other  words,  the  relation  between  cause  and  effect 
may  be  compared  to  that  between  the  receiver  and  transmitter 
of  a  telephone.  If  you  see  a  friend  talking  into  a  transmitter, 
you  feel  certain  that  a  receiver  miles  away  is  repeating  his  words, 
although  you  have  no  evidence  of  that  distant  effect  except  that 
you  see  the  cause  of  it  before  your  eyes.  So  you  can  infer  any 
effect  if  you  see  its  cause  in  action.  Or  again,  if  you  hear  a 
voice  in  your  receiver,  you  are  convinced  that  some  one  is  talking 
into  a  transmitter  in  another  city,  although  you  have  no  proof 
of  the  existence  of  this  cause  except  that  you  hear  the  effect 
which  that  cause  regularly  produces. 

Now  where  there  is  only  one  cause  and  one  effect,  this  argument 
is  simple  and  reliable.  It  is  like  a  private  telephone  line  with  only 
one  transmitter  and  one  receiver.  Hence  you  can  be  certain  that 
there  is  but  one  cause  for  your  effect,  just  as  you  could  feel  assured 
that  there  could  be  but  one  transmitter  from  which  the  voice  heard 
in  your  receiver  could  come.  But  frequently  in  real  life  several 
causes  unite  to  produce  one  effect,  and  several  effects  may  spring 
from  a  single  cause.  In  such  cases,  if  you  are  not  careful,  your 
reasoning  will  prove  unsound,  because  you  may  give  the  blame  (or 
credit)  for  a  certain  effect  to  one  of  its  many  causes  when  really 
the  other  causes  had  more  to  do  with  producing  that  effect.  You 
can  no  more  infer  here  that  any  one  cause  produced  a  certain 
effect  than  you  could  argue  that  a  man  speaking  to  you  over  a 

N 


I78  ENGLISH  COMPOSITION 

public  telephone  must  be  standing  by  a  particular  transmitter, 
when  a  voice  at  any  one  of  a  dozen  different  transmitters  might 
have.produced  the  same  sound.  A  good  example  of  this  fallacious 
reasoning  is  found  in  the  often-quoted  statement:  "The  re- 
publican form  of  government  is  better  than  the  monarchical,  be- 
cause the  United  States  has  grown  so  fast  under  a  republican  govern- 
ment." Here  the  prosperity  of  our  country  is  the  known  effect, 
and  the  speaker  argues  that  our  form  of  government  is  the  unknown 
fcause.  But  as  a  matter  of  fact  there  are  several  causes  for  our 
prosperity :  the  newness  of  our  country,  our  national  isolation,  our 
great  natural  resources,  the  ability  of  our  race,  etc.  If  the  good 
government  were  the  only  possible  cause,  we  should  know  that 
we  have  a  good  government,  for  we  could  not  have  the  effect  with- 
out some  cause,  and  that  would  be  the  only  possible  cause.  But 
as  things  are,  there  are  four  other  causes  fully  able  to  produce  the 
effect  (prosperity),  even  if  cause  five  did  not  east.  Consequently 
we  have  no  proof  that  our  prosperity  is  due,  to  any  extent,  to  our 
government;  and  hence  the  above  statement  is  no  proof  that  our 
government  is  good.  Here  you  have  a  fallacy  in  reasoning  from 
effect  to  cause.  Similar  fallacies  occur  in  reasoning  from  cause 
to  effect.  You  can  never  be  certain  that  this  kind  of  reasoning 
is  sound  unless  you  have  considered  all  possible  causes  and  all 
possible  effects. 

As  a  fourth  form  of  evidence  we  have  the  argument  from  re- 
semblance. This  consists  in  pointing  out  that  things  which  have 
happened  a  certain  way  under  certain  conditions  will  happen 
in  the  same  way  again  under  similar  conditions.  "The  honor 
system  would  work  well  in  our  school,  for  it  worked  well  at  Hamil- 
ton, which  is  a  school  very  much  like  ours."  This  argument 
derives  its  whole  strength  from  the  resemblance  between  the  two 
schools.  Of  course  if  conditions  at  the  two  schools  are  identical, 
it  is  almost  certain  that  what  succeeded  in  one  place  will  succeed 
in  the  other;  and  in  practical  life  the  argument  from  resemblance 
is  usually  treated  with  a  good  deal  of  respect.  At  the  same  time 
it  contains  one  great  danger.  This  is  that  the  resemblance  be- 
tween the  two  schools  (or  whatever  else  you  are  comparing)  may 
not  be  as  close  as  it  seems  to  be  in  those  very  details  that  are  most 
important.  Two  schools  might  resemble  each  other  in  every- 


THE  BRIEF  179 

thing  else,  and  yet  differ  in  the  one  thing  on  which  the  success  of 
the  honor  system  depends,  the  attitude  of  the  undergraduates 
toward  the  curriculum.  The  question  is  not,  Do  the  schools  re- 
semble each  other  in  details  which  are  not  to  the  point,  but,  Do 
they  resemble  each  other  in  that  one  detail  on  which  everything 
depends  ?  If  you  can  show  a  resemblance  of  this  last  kind,  your 
argument  is  strong;  if  you  cannot,  you  may  not  be  proving  nearly 
as  much  as  you  suppose.1 

Another  form  of  reasoning,  very  different  from  the  above,  is 
what  is  called  "deductive  argument."  All  that  deductive  argu- 
ment amounts  to  is  this  :  You  have  a  certain  object  X  about  which 
you  wish  to  prove  a  certain  fact  Y.  You  say,  "  It  is  a  general  law, 
admitted  by  everybody,  that'  the  fact  Y  is  true  of  all  the  objects 
in  a  certain  class.  Now  don't  you  see  that  X  is  one  of  the  objects 
belonging  to  that  class  ?  Consequently,  the  fact  Y  is  true  of  the 
object  X."  The  best  illustration  of  this  is  found  in  geometry, 
which  is  an  unbroken  series  of  deductive  arguments.  You  have 
laid  two  points  in  two  straight  angles  together,  and  you  wish  to 
prove  that  the  angles  coincide.  You  say:  "There  is  a  general 
law,  true  of  all  straight  lines,  that  if  they  coincide  at  two  points, 
they  coincide  throughout.  But  these  two  straight  angles  are 
straight  lines,  and  they  coincide  in  two  points.  Therefore  what  is 
true  of  all  straight  lines  is  true  of  them,  and  they  coincide  through- 
out." In  other  words,  this  is  the  simplest  form  of  putting  two  and 
two  together.  Everybody  admits  that  your  law  is  true  of  that 
class  of  objects  ;  everybody  admits  that  the  object  about  which 
you  are  arguing  belongs  to  that  class  ;  well,  then,  just  put  the  two 
things  together.  An  everyday  example  of  deductive  argument 
would  be  the  following  :  — 

in  such 


and  Johnny  h  nothing  but  a 

so  how  can  you  expect  him  to  live]  „  ,.   „ 

,       P  Consequently,  he  can't  live  there. 

1  Arguments  from  generalization,  cause  and  effect,  and  resemblance  are 
closely  related  and  sometimes  run  into  each  other.  They  are  all  forms  of 
inductive  argument,  that  is,  argument  which  reasons  from  facts  to  general 


l8o         •  ENGLISH  COMPOSITION 

In  real  life  deductive  arguments  are  usually  implied  without 
being  fully  expressed.  You  would  generally  hear  the  above  one 
worded  more  like  this:  "How  can  you  expect  any  boy  to  live  in 
a  den  like  that?"  It  would  still  be  a  deductive  argument,  how- 
ever, since  at  bottom  its  logic  is  the  same. 

To  have  a  sound  deductive  argument,  you  must  be  sure  of  two 
things:  that  the  law  which  you  assume  as  true  really  is  so;  and 
that  the  object  about  which  you  are  proving  your  point  really  is 
a  member  of  the  class  to  which  the  law  applies.  "  Every  man  has 
his  price,  and  Thompson  is  a  man  like  the  rest  of  us ;  so  I  can  bribe 
him."  This  sounds  logical;  but  Thompson  refuses  to  be  bribed; 
consequently  the  reasoning  must  be  wrong.  The  trouble  here 
is  that  the  law  from  which  the  speaker  starts  is  not  true,  for  every 
man  does  not  have  his  price.  "Tyrants  deserve  to  be  killed, 
and  Caesar  was  a  tyrant;  therefore  Caesar  deserved  to  be  killed." 
Here  the  law  in  regard  to  the  class  "tyrants"  is  true;  but  Caesar 
did  not  belong  to  that  class,  for  he  was  not  a  tyrant,  at  least  not 
in  the  sense  in  which  the  word  is  used  here;  consequently  this 
argument  is  worthless. 

Most  arguments  can  be  brought  under  one  of  the  above  heads : 
testimonial  evidence,  cause  and  effect,  generalization,  resemblance, 
and  deductive  reasoning.  If  you  have  analyzed  all  the  points 
in  your  brief  under  these  heads  and  found  them  reliable,  you  may 
feel  reasonably  certain  that  the  framework  of  your  whole  argument 
is  sound. 

Now,  when  your  proposition  is  phrased,  when  your  introduc- 
tion is  drawn  up,  and  when  the  arguments  of  your  brief  proper 
are  arranged  and  tested,  your  brief  is  complete.  All  that  is  left 
is  the  final  task  of  writing  this  out  in  full. 

laws,  as  opposed  to  deductive  argument,  which  reverses  this  order  and  ap- 
plies general  laws  to  particular  cases. 


CHAPTER  IX 

DEVELOPMENT  OF  THE  FULL  ARGUMENT  FROM  THE  BRIEF 

THERE  are  two  great  classes  of  arguments:  (i)  arguments  which 
are  intended  to  convince  people  without  rousing  them  to  action, 
and  (2)  arguments  which  aim  to  persuade  men  not  only  that  some- 
thing is  true,  but  also  that  they  should  rouse  up  and  do  something 
about  it.  An  example  of  the  first  would  be  an  argument  to  prove 
that  the  North  American  Indians  are  related  to  the  Tartars.  This 
question  concerns  only  the  intellect ;  it  has  nothing  to  do  with  the 
feelings ;  and  whether  your  audience  are  convinced  or  not,  nothing 
will  be  done  about  it.  An  example  of  the  second  type  would  be  an 
argument  that  all  voters  should  vote  for  Mr.  X  for  President. 
This  would  appeal  not  only  to  the  intellect  but  also  to  the  emotions 
of  the  audience ;  and  their  whole  future  course  of  conduct  would 
depend  on  the  way  in  which  the  argument  affected  them.  The 
first  type  includes  what  are  usually  called  arguments  of  theory  and 
fact;  the  second  type  includes  what  are  called  arguments  of 
policy;  and  the  appeal  to  the  feelings  which  is  almost  always 
associated  with  these  arguments  of  policy  is  called  Persuasion. 

Now,  in  writing  out  your  full  composition  from  your  previously 
prepared  brief,  you  would  develop  an  argument  of  the  first  type 
somewhat  differently  from  one  of  the  second.  Hence,  we  will 
take  these  up  separately. 

Type  I :  Arguments  of  Theory  or  Fact.  In  writing  these  out,  you 
simply  use  your  brief  as  a  guide,  and  follow  the  rules  of  ordinary 
exposition.  If  your  argument  is  very  short,  each  main  division 
may  be  made  a  paragraph.  If  it  is  long,  you  should  have  separate 
paragraphs  for  the  larger  subdivisions.  Be  careful  to  make  all 
transitions  clear  and  to  have  each  paragraph  emphasize  its  main 
point.  A  good  example  of  an  argument  of  this  type  is  the  follow- 
ing:— 

181 


!82.  ENGLISH  COMPOSITION 

THE    ORIGIN    OF    THE    YOSEMITE    VALLEY1 

JOSIAH  DWIGHT  WHITNEY 

[From  The  Yosemite  Guide  Book,  1874.] 

All  will  recognize  in  the  Yosemite  a  peculiar  and  unique  type 
of  scenery.  Cliffs  absolutely  vertical,  like  the  upper  portions  of 
the  Half  Dome  and  El  Capitan,  and  of  such  immense  height  as 
these,  are,  so  far  as  we  know,  to  be  seen  nowhere  else.  The  dome 
form  of  mountains  is  exhibited  on  a  grand  scale  in  other  parts  of 
the  Sierra  Nevada;  but  there  is  no  Half  Dome,  even  among  the 
stupendous  precipices  at  the  head  of  the  King's  River.  No  one 
can  avoid  asking,  What  is  the  origin  of  this  peculiar  type  of  scen- 
ery ?  How  has  this  unique  valley  been  formed,  and  what  are  the 
geological  causes  which  have  produced  its  wonderful  cliffs,  and  all 
the  other  features  which  combine  to  make  this  locality  so  remark- 
able?' These  questions  we  will  endeavor  to  answer,  as  well  as  our 
ability  to  pry  into  what  went  on  in  the  deep-seated  regions  of  the 
earth,  in  former  geological  ages,  will  permit. 

Most  of  the  great  canons  and  valleys  of  the  Sierra  Nevada  have 
resulted  from  aqueous  denudation,  and  in  no  part  of  the  world 
has  this  kind  of  work  been  done  on  a  larger  scale.  The  long- 
continued  action  of  tremendous  torrents  of  water,  rushing  with 
impetuous  velocity  down  the  slopes  of  the  mountains,  has  exca- 
vated those  immense  gorges  by  which  the  chain  of  the  Sierra 
Nevada  is  furrowed,  on  its  western  slope,  to  the  depth  of  thou- 
sands of  feet.  This  erosion,  great  as  it  is,  has  been  done  within 
a  comparatively  recent  period,  geologically  speaking,  as  is  conclu- 
sively demonstrated  in  numerous  localities.  At  the  Abbey's  Ferry 
crossing  of  the  Stanislaus,  for  instance,  a  portion  of  the  mass  of 
Table  Mountain  is  seen  on  each  side  of  the  river,  in  such  a  posi- 
tion as  to  demonstrate  that  the  current  of  the  lava  which  forms 
the  summit  of  this  mountain  once  flowed  continuously  across 
what  is  now  a  canon  over  2000  feet  deep,  showing  that  the  erosion 

1  Used  by  the  kind  permission  of  the  owner  of  the  copyright,  Miss  Maria 
Whitney. 


DEVELOPMENT  OF   THE  FULL  ARGUMENT          183 

of  that  immense  gorge  has  all  been  effected  since  the  lava  flowed 
down  from  the  higher  portion  of  the  Sierra.  This  event  took 
place,  as  we  know  from  the  fossil  bones  and  plants  embedded 
under  the  volcanic  mass,  at  a  very  recent  geological  period,  or  in 
the  latter  part  of  the  Tertiary  epoch,  and  after  the  appearance  of 
man  on  the  earth. 

The  eroded  canons  of  the  Sierra,  however,  whose  formation  is 
due  to  the  action  of  water,  never  have  vertical  walls,  nor  do  their 
sides  present  the  peculiar  angular  forms  which  are  seen  in  the 
Yosemite,  as,  for  instance,  in  El  Capitan,  where  two  perpendic- 
ular surfaces  of  smooth  granite,  more  than  3000  feet  high,  meet 
each  other  at  a  right  angle.  It  is  sufficient  to  look  for  a  moment 
at  the  vertical  faces  of  El  Capitan  and  the  Bridal  Veil  Rock,  turned 
down  the  Valley,  or  away  from  the  direction  in  which  the  eroding 
forces  must  have  acted,  to  be  able  to  say  that  aqueous  erosion 
could  not  have  been  the  agent  employed  to  do  any  such  work. 
The  squarely  cut  reentering  angles,  like  those  below  El  Capitan, 
and  between  Cathedral  Rock  and  the  Sentinel,  or  in  the  Illilouette 
canon,  were  never  produced  by  ordinary  erosion.  Much  less 
could  any  such  cause  be  called  in  to  account  for  the  peculiar 
formation  of  the  Half  Dome,  the  vertical  portion  of  which  is  all 
above  the  ordinary  level  of  the  walls  of  the  Valley,  rising  2000  feet, 
in  sublime  isolation,  above  any  point  which  could  have  been 
reached  by  denuding  agencies,  even  supposing  the  current  of  water 
to  have  filled  the  whole  Valley. 

Much  less  can  it  be  supposed  that  the  peculiar  form  of  the 
Yosemite  is  due  to  the  erosive  action  of  ice.  A  more  absurd  theory 
was  never  advanced  than  that  by  which  it  was  sought  to  ascribe 
to  glaciers  the  sawing  out  of  these  vertical  walls,  and  the  rounding 
of  the  domes.  Nothing  more  unlike  the  real  work  of  ice,  as  ex- 
hibited in  the  Alps,  could  be  found.  Besides,  there  is  no  reason 
to  suppose,  or  at  least  no  proof,  that  glaciers  have  ever  occupied 
the  Valley  or  any  portion  of  it,  as  will  be  explained  in  the  next 
chapter ;  so  that  this  theory,  based  on  entire  ignorance  of  the  whole 
subject,  may  be  dropped  without  wasting  any  more  time  upon  it. 

The  theory  of  erosion  not  being  admissible  to  account  for  the 
formation  of  the  Yosemite  Valley,  we  have  to  fall  back  on  some 
one  of  those  movements  of  the  earth's  crust  to  which  the  primal 


!84  ENGLISH   COMPOSITION 

forms  of  mountain  valleys  are  due.  The  forces  which  have  acted 
to  produce  valleys  are  complex  in  their  nature,  and  it  is  not  easy 
to  classify  the  forms  which  have  resulted  from  them  in  a  satis- 
factory manner.  The  two  principal  types  of  valleys,  however,  are 
those  produced  by  rents  or  fissures  in  the  crust,  and  those  resulting 
from  flexures  or  foldings  of  the  strata.  The  former  are  usually 
transverse  to  the  mountain  chain  in  which  they  occur ;  the  latter 
are  more  frequently  parallel  to  them,  and  parallel  to  the  general 
strike  of  the  strata  of  which  the  mountains  are  made  up.  Valleys 
which  have  originated  in  cross  fractures  are  usually  very  narrow 
defiles,  inclosed  within  steep  walls  of  rocks,  the  steepness  of  the' 
walls  increasing  with  the  hardness  of  the  rock.  It  would  be  diffi- 
cult to  point  to  a  good  example  of  this  kind  of  valley  in  California ; 
the  famous  defile  of  the  Via  Mala  in  Switzerland  is  one  of  the  best 
which  could  be  cited.  Valleys  formed  by  foldings  of  the  strata 
are  very  common  in  many  mountain  chains,  especially  in  those 
typical  ones,  the  Jura  and  the  Appalachian.  Many  of  the  valleys 
of  the  Coast  Ranges  are  of  this  order.  A  valley  formed  in  either 
one  of  the  ways  suggested  above  may  be  modified  afterwards  by 
forces  pertaining  to  either  of  the  others ;  thus  a  valley  originating 
in  a  transverse  fissure  may  afterwards  become  much  modified  by  an 
erosive  agency,  or  a  longitudinal  flexure  valley  may  have  one  of 
its  sides  raised  up  or  let  down  by  a  "fault"  or  line  of  fissure 
running  through  or  across  it. 

If  we  examine  the  Yosemite  to  see  if  traces  of  an  origin  in  either 
of  the  above  ways  can  be  detected  there,  we  obtain  a  negative 
answer.  The  Valley  is  too  wide  to  have  been  formed  by  a  fissure ; 
it  is  about  as  wide  as  it  is  deep,  and  if  it  had  been  originally  a 
simple  crack,  the  walls  must  have  been  moved  bodily  away  from 
each  other,  carrying  the  whole  chain  of  the  Sierra  with  them,  to 
one  side  or  the  other,  or  both,  for  the  distance  of  half  a  mile.  Be- 
sides, when  a  cliff  has  been  thus  formed,  there  will  be  no  difficulty 
in  recognizing  the  fact,  from  the  correspondence  of  the  outlines  of 
the  two  sides ;  just  as,  when  we  break  a  stone  in  two,  the  pieces 
must  necessarily  admit  of  being  fitted  together  again.  No  corre- 
spondence of  the  two  sides  of  the  Yosemite  can  be  detected,  nor 
will  the  most  ingenious  contriving,  or  lateral  moving,  suffice  to 
bring  them  into  anything  like  adaptation  to  each  other.  A  square 


DEVELOPMENT  OF   THE  FULL  ARGUMENT         185 

recess  on  one  side  is  met  on  the  other,  not  by  a  corresponding  pro- 
jection, but  by  a  plain  wall  or  even  another  cavity.  These  facts 
are  sufficient  to  make  the  adoption  of  the  theory  of  a  rent  or  fissure 
impossible.  There  is  much  the  same  difficulty  in  conceiving  of  the 
formation  of  the  Valley  by  any  flexure  or  folding  process.  The 
forms  and  outlines  of  the  masses  of  rock  limiting  it  are  too  angular, 
and  have  too  little  development  in  any  one  direction ;  they  are  cut 
off  squarely  at  the  upper  end,  where  the  ascent  to  the  general  level 
of  the  country.is  by  gigantic  steps,  and  not  by  a  gradual  rise.  The 
direction  of  the  Valley,  too,  is  transverse  to  the  general  line  of 
elevation  of  the  mountains,  and  not  parallel  with  it,  as  it  should 
be,  roughly  at  least,  were  it  the  result  of  folding  or  upheaval. 

In  short,  we  are  led  irresistibly  to  the  adoption  of  a  theory  of 
the  origin  of  the  Yosemite  Valley  in  a  way  which  has  hardly  yet 
been  recognized  as  one  of  those  in  which  valleys  may  be  formed, 
probably  for  the  reason  that  there  are  so  few  cases  in  which 
such  an  event  can  be  absolutely  proved  to  have  occurred.  We 
conceive  that,  during  the  process  of  upheaval  of  the  Sierra,  or, 
possibly,  at  some  time  after  that  had  taken  place,  there  was  at 
the  Yosemite  a  subsidence  of  a  limited  area,  marked  by  lines  of 
"fault"  or  fissures  crossing  each  other  somewhat  nearly  at  right 
angles.  In  other  and  more  simple  language,  the  bottom  of  the 
Valley  sank  down  to  an  unknown  depth,  owing  to  its  support  being 
withdrawn  from  underneath  during  some  of  those  convulsive 
movements  which  must  have  attended  the  upheaval  of  so  extensive 
and  elevated  a  chain,  no  matter  how  slow  we  may  imagine  the 
process  to  have  been.  Subsidence,  over  extensive  areas,  of  por- 
tions of  the  earth's  crust  is  not  at  all  a  new  idea  in  geology,  and 
there  is  nothing  in  this  peculiar  application  of  it  which  need  excite 
surprise.  It  is  the  great  amount  of  vertical  displacement  for  the 
small  area  implicated  which  makes  this  a  peculiar  case;  but  it 
would  not  be  easy  to  give  any  good  reason  why  such  an  exceptional 
result  should  not  be  brought  about,  amid  the  complicated  play 
of  forces  which  the  elevation  of  a  great  mountain  chain  must  set 
in  motion. 

By  the  adoption  of  the  subsidence  theory  for  the  formation 
of  the  Yosemite,  we  are  able  to  get  over  one  difficulty  which 
appears  insurmountable  with  any  other.  This  is,  the  very  small 


!g6  ENGLISH  COMPOSITION 

amount  of  debris  at  the  base  of  the  cliffs,  and  even,  at  a  few  points, 
its  entire  absence,  as  previously  noticed  in  our  description  of  the 
Valley.  We  see  that  fragments  of  rocks  are  loosened  by  rain, 
frost,  gravity,  and  other  natural  causes,  along  the  walls,  and 
probably  not  a  winter  elapses  that  some  great  mass  of  detritus 
does  not  come  thundering  down  from  above,  adding,  as  it  is  easy 
to  see  from  actual  inspection  of  those  slides  which  have  occurred 
within  the  past  few  years,  no  inconsiderable  amount  to  the  talus. 
Several  of  these  great  rock  avalanches  have  taken  place  since  the 
Valley  was  inhabited.  One  which  fell  near  Cathedral  Rock  is 
said  to  have  shaken  the  Valley  like  an  earthquake.  This  abrasion 
of  the  edges  of  the  Valley  has  unquestionably  been  going  on  during 
a  vast  period  of  time ;  what  has  become  of  the  detrital  material  ? 
Some  masses  of  granites  now  lying  in  the  Valley  —  one  in  partic- 
ular near  the  base  of  the  Yosemite  Fall  —  are  as  large  as  houses. 
Such  masses  as  these  could  never  have  been  removed  from  the 
Valley  by  currents  of  water;  in  fact,  there  is  no  evidence  of  any 
considerable  amount  of  aqueous  erosion,  for  the  canon  of  the 
Merced  below  the  Yosemite  is  nearly  free  from  detritus,  all  the  way 
down  to  the  plain.  The  falling  masses  have  not  been  carried 
out  by  a  glacier,  for  there  are  below  the  Valley  no  remains 
of  the  moraines  which  such  an  operation  could  not  fail  to  have 
formed. 

It  appears  to  us  that  there  is  no  way  of  disposing  of  the  vast 
mass  of  detritus,  which  must  have  fallen  from  the  walls  of  the 
Yosemite  since  the  formation  of  the  Valley,  except  by  assuming 
that  it  has  gone  down  to  fill  the  abyss  which  was  opened  by  the 
subsidence  which  our  theory  supposes  to  have  taken  place.  What 
the  depth  of  the  chasm  may  have  been  we  have  no  data  for  com- 
puting; but  that  it  must  have  been  very  great  is  proved  by  the 
fact  that  it  has  been  able  to  receive  the  accumulation  of  so  long 
a  period  of  time.  The  cavity  was,  undoubtedly,  occupied  by 
water,  forming  a  lake  of  unsurpassed  beauty  and  grandeur,  until 
quite  a  recent  epoch.  The  gradual  desiccation  of  the  whole 
country,  the  disappearance  of  the  glaciers,  and  the  filling  up  of 
the  abyss  to  nearly  a  level  with  the  present  outlet,  where  the  Valley 
passes  into  a  canon  of  the  usual  form,  have  converted  the  lake 
into  a  valley  with  a  river  meandering  through  it.  The  process  of 


DEVELOPMENT   OF   THE  FULL   ARGUMENT          187 

filling  up  still  continues,  and  the  talus  will  accumulate  perceptibly 
fast,  although  a  long  time  must  elapse  before  the  general  appearance 
of  the  Valley  will  be  much  altered  by  this  cause,  so  stupendous  is 
the  vertical  height  of  its  walls,  and  so  slow  their  crumbling  away, 
at  least  as  compared  with  the  historic  duration  of  time. 

Lake  Tahoe  and  the  valley  which  it  partly  occupies  we  con- 
ceive also  to  be,  like  the  Yosemite,  the  result  of  local  subsidence. 
It  has  evidently  not  been  produced  by  erosion;  its  depth  below 
the  mountains  on  each  side,  amounting  to  as  much  as  3000  feet, 
forbids  this  idea,  as  do  also  its  limited  area  and  its  parallelism 
with  the  axis  of  the  chain.  The  Lake  is  still  very  deep,  over  1000 
feet;  but  how  deep  it  was  originally,  and  how  much  detritus  has 
been  carried  into  it,  we  have  no  data  for  even  crudely  estimating. 

Type  II :  Arguments  of  Policy.  In  writing  out  this  type  of  argu- 
ment in  full,  we  also  follow  all  the  previous  rules  for  exposition; 
but  we  likewise  have  certain  new  considerations  to  face.  The  first 
new  need  here  is  a  certain  amount  of  policy  or  diplomacy  in  our 
opening  remarks.  We  are  trying  to  win  over  people  who  disagree 
with  us;  hence  we 'must  be  careful  to  ingratiate  ourselves  with 
them  at  the  start.  Our  introduction  must  be  not  only  clear  but 
tactful  as  well. 

Secondly,  we  need  a  certain  exciting  stimulus  in  this  form  of 
argument  which  was  not  required  in  the  other  type  or  in  exposition. 
If  you  wish  men  to  act,  it  is  not  enough  to  convince  them  that 
certain  facts  are  so.  It  is  easy  to  convince  most  college  men  that 
they  ought  to  study  harder;  but  it  is  not  so  easy  to  get  them  to 
study,  even  after  they  are  convinced.  So  it  is  in  all  things.  You 
must  adopt  some  definite  means  of  spurring  on  your  readers  to 
action;  or  the  laziness  inherent  in  all  humanity  will  keep  them 
from  acting,  even  after  they  have  agreed  that  you  are  right.  The 
means  used  for  thus  spurring  on  your  readers  to  action  are 
various;  but  all  consist  in  exciting  their  emotions.  One  of 
the  best  ways  is  that  of  giving  specific  instances  which  will 
appeal  to  the  reader's  conscience  or  pride  or  sympathy.  Such 
definite  examples  are  always  much  more  vivid  and  exciting  than 
philosophical  generalizations.  For  instance,  a  man  who  was 
arguing  for  the  suppression  of  Child  Labor  could  stir  up  his  audi- 


!88  ENGLISH   COMPOSITION 

ence  tremendously  by  picturing  the  sufferings  of  one  little  child, 
when  elaborate  statistics  about  children  in  general  would  convince 
their  reason  without  rousing  their  interest.  Another  powerful 
instrument  of  Persuasion  is  an  appeal  to  the  selfish  instincts  in 
man.  If  a  person  can  be  made  to  feel  that  the  wrongs  of  another 
man  may  eventually  become  his  wrongs,  he  is  much  more  inclined 
to  enter  the  field  in  that  man's  defence.  As  a  general  thing,  it  is 
better  to  bring  your  most  solid  arguments  in  the  middle  of  your 
speech  and  the  appeal  to  the  feelings  of  your  audience  later.  In- 
telligent men  are  more  willing  to  enlist  their  sympathies  on  your 
side  when  you  have  already  won  their  respect  by  an  appeal  to  their 
reason. 

The  following  extracts  are  examples  of  arguments  of  this  type. 
Their  difference  in  character  is  due  largely  to  the  difference  in 
the  audiences  before  which  they  were  delivered. 


THE  LIVERPOOL  SPEECH 

HENRY  WARD   BEECHER 

This  speech  was  delivered  in  Liverpool,  England,  during  our  Civil  War. 
Notice  how  Mr.  Beecher  gradually  wins  over  an  audience  at  first  opposed 
to  him  and  his  views. 

For  more  than  twenty-five  years  I  have  been  made  perfectly 
familiar  with  popular  assemblies  in  all  parts  of  my  country  except 
the  extreme  South.  There  has  not  for  the  whole  of  that  time  been 
a  single  day  of  my  life  when  it  would  have  been  safe  for  me  to  go 
South  of  Mason's  and  Dixon's  line  in  my  own  country,  and  all  for 
one  reason :  my  solemn,  earnest,  persistent  testimony  against  that 
which  I  consider  to  be  the  most  atrocious  thing  under  the  sun  — 
the  system  of  American  slavery  in  a  great  free  republic.  [Cheers.] 
I  have  passed  through  that  early  period  when  right  of  free  speech 
was  denied  to  me.  Again  and  again  I  have  attempted  to  address 
audiences  that,  for  no  other  crime  than  that  of  free  speech,  visited 
me  with  all  manner  of  contumelious  epithets;  and  now  since  I 
have  been  in  England,  although  I  have  met  with  greater  kindness 
and  courtesy  on  the  part  of  most  than  I  deserved,  yet,  on  the  other 


DEVELOPMENT  OF   THE   FULL   ARGUMENT          189 

hand,  I  perceive  that  the  Southern  influence  prevails  to  some  ex- 
tent in  England.  [Applause  and  uproar.]  It  is  my  old  acquaint- 
ance ;  I  understand  it  perfectly  —  [laughter]  —  and  I  have  always 
held  it  to  be  an  unfailing  truth  that  where  a  man  had  a  cause  that 
would  bear  examination  he  was  perfectly  willing  to  have  it  spoken 
about.  [Applause.]  And  when  in  Manchester  I  saw  those  huge 
placards:  "Who  is  Henry  Ward  Beecher?"  —  [laughter,  cries  of 
"Quite  right,"  and  applause]  —  and  when  in  Liverpool  I  was  told 
that  there  were  those  blood-red  placards,  purporting  to  say  what 
Henry  Ward  Beecher  had  said,  and  calling  upon  Englishmen  to 
suppress  free  speech  —  I  tell  you  what  I  thought.  I  thought 
simply  this:  "I  am  glad  of  it."  [Laughter.]  Why?  Because 
if  they  had  felt  perfectly  secure,  that  you  are  the  minions  of  the 
South  and  the  slaves  of  slavery,  they  would  have  been  perfectly 
still.  [Applause  and  uproar.]  And,  therefore,  when  I  saw  so 
much  nervous  apprehension  that,  if  I  were  permitted  to  speak  — 
[hisses  and  applause]  —  when  I  found  they  were  afraid  to  have 
me  speak — [hisses,  laughter,  and  "No,  no!"]  —  when  I  found 
that  they  considered  my  speaking  damaging  to  their  cause  — 
[applause]  —  when  I  found  that  they  appealed  from  facts  and 
reasonings  to  mob  law  —  [applause  and  uproar]  —  I  said,  no  man 
need  tell  me  what  the  heart  and  secret  counsel  of  these  men  are. 
They  tremble  and  are  afraid.  [Applause,  laughter,  hisses,  "No, 
no!"  and  a  voice:  "New  York  mob."]  Now,  personally,  it  is  a 
matter  of  very  little  consequence  to  me  whether  I  speak  here  to- 
night or  not.  [Laughter  and  cheers.]  But,  one  thing  is  very  cer- 
tain, if  you  do  permit  me  to  speak  here  to-night,  you  will  hear  very 
plain  talking.  [Applause  and  hisses.]  You  will  not  find  a  man — 
[interruption]  —  you  will  not  find  me  to  be  a  man  that  dared  to 
speak  about  Great  Britain  three  thousand  miles  off,  and  then  is 
afraid  to  speak  to  Great  Britain  when  he  stands  on' her  shores. 
[Immense  applause  and  hisses.]  And  if  I  do  not  mistake  the  tone 
and  temper  of  Englishmen,  they  had  rather  have  a  man  who  op- 
poses them  in  a  manly  way  —  [applause  from  all  parts  of  the  hall] 
—  than  a  sneak  that  agrees  with  them  in  an  unmanly  way.  [Ap- 
plause and  "Bravo!"]  Now,  if  I  can  carry  you  with  me  by 
sound  convictions,  I  shall  be  immensely  glad  —  [applause] ;  but 
if  I  cannot  carry  you  with  me  by  facts  and  sound  arguments,  I  do 


190 


ENGLISH  COMPOSITION 


not  wish  you  to  go  with  me  at  all;  and  all  that  I  ask  is  simply 
FAIR  PLAY.  [Applause,  and  a  voice:  "You  shall  have  it  too.'"] 

Those  of  you  who  are  kind  enough  to  wish  to  favor  my  speaking 
—  and  you  will  observe  that  my  voice  is  slightly  husky,  from  having 
spoken  almost  every  night  in  succession  for  some  time  past,  — 
those  who  wish  to  hear  me  will  do  me  the  kindness  simply  to  sit 
still,  and  to  keep  still;  and  I  and  my  friends  the  Secessionists  will 
make  all  the  noise.  [Laughter.] 

There  are  two  dominant  races  in  modern  history  —  the  Ger- 
manic and  the  Romanic  races.  The  Germanic  races  tend  to 
personal  liberty,  to  a  sturdy  individualism,  to  civil  and  to  political 
liberty.  The  Romanic  race  tends  to  absolutism  in  government; 
it  is  clannish;  it  loves  chieftains;  it  develops  a  people  that  crave 
strong  and  showy  governments  to  support  and  plan  for  them.  The 
Anglo-Saxon  race  belongs  to  the  great  German  family,  and  is  a 
fair  exponent  of  its  peculiarities.  The  Anglo-Saxon  carries  self- 
government  and  self -development  with  him  wherever  he  goes. 
He  has  popular  GOVERNMENT  and  popular  INDUSTRY; 
for  the  effects  of  a  generous  civil  liberty  are  not  seen  a  whit  more 
plain  in  the  good  order,  in  the  intelligence,  and  in  the  virtue  of  a 
self-governing  people,  than  in  their  amazing  enterprise  and  the 
scope  and  power  of  their  creative  industry.  The  power  to  create 
riches  is  just  as  much  a  part  of  the  Anglo-Saxon  virtues  as  the 
power  to  create  good  order  and  social  safety.  The  things  re- 
quired for  prosperous  labor,  prosperous  manufactures,  and 
prosperous  commerce  are  three.  First,  liberty;  second,  liberty; 
third,  liberty.  [Hear,  hear!]  Though  these  are  not  merely  the 
same  liberty,  as  I  shall  show  you.  First,  there  must  be  liberty  to 
follow  those  laws  of  business  which  experience  has  developed, 
without  imposts  or  restrictions  or  governmental  intrusions.  Busi- 
ness simply  wants  to  be  let  alone.  [Hear,  hear !]  Then,  secondly, 
there  must  be  liberty  to  distribute  and  exchange  products  of  in- 
dustry in  any  market  without  burdensome  tariffs,  without  im- 
posts, and  without  vexatious  regulations.  There  must  be  these 
two  liberties  —  liberty  to  create  wealth,  as  the  makers  of  it  think 
best,  according  to  the  light  and  experience  which  business  has  given 
them ;  and  then  liberty  to  distribute  what  they  have  created  with- 
out unnecessary  vexatious  burdens.  The  comprehensive  law 


DEVELOPMENT   OF   THE  FULL   ARGUMENT 


IQI 


of  the  ideal  industrial  condition  of  the  world  is  free  manufacture 
and  free  trade.  [Hear,  hear!  A  voice:  "The  Morrill  tariff." 
Another  voice :  "  Monroe."]  I  have  said  there  were  three  elements 
of  liberty.  The  third  is  the  necessity  of  an  intelligent  and  free 
race  of  customers.  There  must  be  freedom  among  producers; 
there  must  be  freedom  among  the  distributors ;  there  must  be  free- 
dom among  the  customers.  It  may  not  have  occurred  to  you  that 
it  makes  any  difference  what  one's  customers  are,  but  it  does  in  all 
regular  and  prolonged  business.  The  condition  of  the  customer 
determines  how  much  he  will  buy,  determines  of  what  sort  he  will 
buy.  Poor  and  ignorant  people  buy  little  and  that  of  the  poorest 
kind.  The  richest  and  the  intelligent,  having  the  more  means  to 
buy,  buy  the  most,  and  always  buy  the  best.  Here,  then,  are  the 
three  liberties:  liberty  of  the  producer,  liberty  of  the  distributor, 
and  liberty  of  the  consumer.  The  first  two  need  no  discussion; 
they  have  been  long  thoroughly  and  brilliantly  illustrated  by  the 
political  economists  of  Great  Britain  and  by  her  eminent  states- 
men; but  it  seems  to  me  that  enough  attention  has  not  been 
directed  to  the  third;  and,  with  your  patience,  I  will  dwell  upon 
that  for  a  moment,  before  proceeding  to  other  topics. 

It  is  a  necessity  of  every  manufacturing  and  commercial  people 
that  their  customers  should  be  very  wealthy  and  intelligent.  Let 
us  put  the  subject  before  you  in  the  familiar  light  of  your  own 
local  experience.  To  whom  do  the  tradesmen  of  Liverpool  sell 
the  most  goods  at  the  highest  profit?  To  the  ignorant  and  poor, 
or  to  the  educated  and  prosperous ?  [A  voice:  "To  the  South- 
erners." Laughter.]  The  poor  man  buys  simply  for  his  body; 
he  buys  food,  he  buys  clothing,  he  buys  fuel,  he  buys  lodging.  His 
rule  is  to  buy  the  least  and  the  cheapest  that  he  can.  He  goes  to 
the  store  as  seldom  as  he  can ;  he  brings  away  as  little  as  he  can ; 
and  he  buys  for  the  least  he  can.  [Much  laughter.]  Poverty  is 
not  a  misfortune  to  the  poor  only  who  suffer  it,  but  it  is  more  or 
less  a  misfortune  to  all  with  whom  he  deals.  On  the  other  hand, 
a  man  well  off  —  how  is  it  with  him  ?  He  buys  in  far  greater 
quantity.  He  can  afford  to  do  it ;  he  has  the  money  to  pay  for  it. 
He  buys  in  far  greater  variety,  because  he  seeks  to  gratify  not 
merely  physical  wants,  but  also  mental  wants.  He  buys  for  the 
satisfaction  of  sentiment  and  taste,  as  well  as  of  sense.  He  buys 


I92  ENGLISH   COMPOSITION 

silk,  wool,  flax,  cotton;  he  buys  all  metals  —  iron,  silver,  gold, 
platinum;  in  short  he  buys  for  all  necessities,  and  all  substances. 
But  that  is  not  all.  He  buys  a  better  quality  of  goods.  He  buys 
richer  silks,  finer  cottons,  higher  grained  wools.  Now  a  rich  silk 
means  so  much  skill  and  care  of  somebody's  that  has  been  ex- 
pended upon  it  to  make  it  finer  and  richer ;  and  so  of  cotton  and  so 
of  wool.  That  is,  the  price  of  the  finer  goods  runs  back  to  the 
very  beginning,  and  remunerates  the  workman  as  well  as  the 
merchant.  Now,  the  whole  laboring  community  is  as  much  inter- 
ested and  profited  as  the  mere  merchant,  in  this  buying  and  selling 
of  the  higher  grades  in  the  greater  varieties  and  quantities.  The 
law  of  price  is  the  skill ;  and  the  amount  of  skill  expended  in  the 
work  is  as  much  for  the  market  as  are  the  goods.  A  man  conies 
to  market  and  says:  "I  have  a  pair  of  hands,"  and  he  obtains  the 
lowest  wages.  Another  man  comes  and  says:  "I  have  something 
more  than  a  pair  of  hands;  I  have  truth  and  fidelity."  He  gets 
a  higher  price.  Another  man  comes  and  says :  "I  have  something 
more;  I  have  hands,  and  strength,  and  fidelity,  and  skill."  He 
gets  more  than  either  of  the  others.  The  next  man  comes  and 
says:  "I  have  got  hands,  and  strength,  and  skill,  and  fidelity; 
but  my  hands  work  more  than  that.  They  know  how  to  create 
things  for  the  fancy,  for  the  affections,  for  the  moral  sentiments"; 
and  he  gets  more  than  either  of  the  others.  The  last  man  comes 
and  says:  "I  have  all  these  qualities,  and  have  them  so  highly 
that  it  is  a  peculiar  genius";  and  genius  carries  the  whole  market 
and  gets  the  highest  price.  [Loud  applause.]  So  that  both  the 
workman  and  the  merchant  are  profited  by  having  purchasers 
that  demand  quality,  variety,  and  quantity.  Now,  if  this  be  so  in 
the  town  or  the  city,  it  can  only  be  so  because  it  is  a  law.  This 
is  the  specific  development  of  a  general  or  universal  law,  and  there- 
fore we  should  expect  to  find  it  as  true  of  a  nation  as  of  a  city  like 
Liverpool.  I  know  that  it  is  so,  and  you  know  that  it  is  true  of  all 
the  world;  and  it  is  just  as  important  to  have  customers  educated, 
intelligent,  moral,  and  rich  out  of  Liverpool  as  it  is  in  Liverpool. 
[Applause.]  They  are  able  to  buy;  they  want  variety,  they  want 
the  very  best ;  and  those  are  the  customers  you  want.  That  nation 
is  the  best  customer  that  is  freest,  because  freedom  works  prosperity, 
industry,  and  wealth.  Great  Britain,  then,  aside  from  moral  con- 


DEVELOPMENT  OF   THE  FULL  ARGUMENT 


193 


siderations,  has  a  direct  commercial  and  pecuniary  interest  in  the 
liberty,  civilization,  and  wealth  of  every  nation  on  the  globe. 
[Loud  applause.]  You  also  have  an  interest  in  this,  because  you 
are  a  moral  and  religious  people.  ["  Oh,  oh ! "  Laughter  and 
applause.  ]  You  desire  it  from  the  highest  motives ;  and  godliness 
is  profitable  in  all  things,  having  the  promise  of  the  life  that  now 
is,  as  well  as  of  that  which  is  to  come;  but  if  there  were  no  here- 
after, and  if  man  had  no  progress  in  this  life,  and  if  there  were  no 
question  of  civilization  at  all,  it  would  be  worth  your  while  to 
protect  civilization  and  liberty,  merely  as  a  commercial  specula- 
tion. To  evangelize  has  more  than  a  moral  and  religious  import 
—  it  comes  back  to  temporal  relations.  Wherever  a  nation  that 
is  crushed,  cramped,  degraded  under  despotism  is  struggling  to  be 
free,  you  —  Leeds,  Sheffield,  Manchester,  Paisley  —  all  have  an 
interest  that  that  nation  should  be  free.  When  depressed  and 
backward  people  demand  that  they  may  have  a  chance  to  rise  — 
Hungary,  Italy,  Poland  —  it  is  a  duty  for  humanity's  sake,  it  is 
a  duty  for  the  highest  moral  motives,  to  sympathize  with  them; 
but  besides  all  these  there  is  a  material  and  an  interested  reason 
why  you  should  sympathize  with  them.  Pounds  and  pence  join 
with  conscience  and  with  honor  in  this  design.  Now,  Great 
Britain's  chief  want  is  —  what  ? 

They  have  said  that  your  chief  want  is  cotton.  I  deny  it.  Your 
chief  want  is  consumers.  [Applause  and  hisses.]  You  have  got 
skill,  you  have  got  capital,  and  you  have  got  machinery  enough  to 
manufacture  goods  for  the  whole  population  of  the  globe.  You 
could  turn  out  fourfold  as  much  as  you  do,  if  you  only  had  the 
market  to  sell  in.  It  is  not  so  much  the  want,  therefore,  of  fabric, 
though  there  may  be  a  temporary  obstruction  of  it ;  but  the  prin- 
cipal and  increasing  want  —  increasing  from  year  to  year  —  is, 
where  shall  we  find  men  to  buy  what  we  can  manufacture  so  fast? 
[Interruption,  and  a  voice,  "The  Morrill  tariff,"  and  applause.] 
Before  the  American  war  broke  out,  your  warehouses  were  loaded 
with  goods  that  you  could  not  sell.  [Applause  and  hisses.]  You 
had  over-manufactured ;  what  is  the  meaning  of  over-manufac- 
turing but  this :  that  you  had  skill,  capital,  machinery,  to  create 
faster  than  you  had  customers  to  take  goods  off  your  hands?  And 
you  know  that  rich  as  Great  Britain  is,  vast  as  are  her  manufactures, 


I94  ENGLISH  COMPOSITION 

if  she  could  have  fourfold  the  present  demand,  she  could  make 
fourfold  riches  to-morrow ;  and  every  political  economist  will  tell 
you  that  your  want  is  not  cotton  primarily,  but  customers.  There- 
fore, the  doctrine,  how  to  make  customers,  is  a  great  deal  more 
important  to  Great  Britain  than  the  doctrine  how  to  raise  cotton. 
It  is  to  that  doctrine  I  ask  from  you,  business  men,  practical  men, 
men  of  fact,  sagacious  Englishmen  —  to  that  point  I  ask  a  mo- 
ment's attention.  [Shouts  of  "Oh,  oh!"  hisses,  and  applause.] 
There  are  no  more  continents  to  be  discovered.  [Hear,  hear!] 
The  market  of  the  future  must  be  found  —  how  ?  There  is  very 
little  hope  of  any  more  demand  being  created  by  new  fields.  If 
you  are  to  have  a  better  market,  there  must  be  some  kind  of  process 
invented  to  make  the  old  fields  better.  [A  voice,  "Tell  us  some- 
thing new,"  shouts  of  "Order,"  and  interruption.]  Let  us  look 
at  it,  then.  You  must  civilize  the  world  in  order  to  make  a  better 
class  of  purchasers.  [Interruption.]  If  you  were  to  press  Italy 
down  again  under  the  feet  of  despotism,  Italy,  discouraged,  could 
draw  but  very  few  supplies  from  you.  But  give  her  liberty, 
kindle  schools  throughout  her  valleys,  spur  her  industry,  make 
treaties  with  her  by  which  she  can  exchange  her  wine,  and  her 
oil,  and  her  silk  for  your  manufactured  goods ;  and  for  every  effort 
that  you  make  in  that  direction  there  will  come  back  profit  to  you 
by  increased  traffic  with  her.  [Loud  applause.]  If  Hungary  asks 
to  be  an  unshackled  nation  —  if  by  freedom  she  will  rise  in  virtue 
and  intelligence,  then  by  freedom  she  will  acquire  a  more  multi- 
farious industry,  which  she  will  be  willing  to  exchange  for  your 
manufactures.  Her  liberty  is  to  be  found  —  where  ?  You  will 
find  it  in  the  Word  of  God,  you  will  find  it  in  the  code  of  history; 
but  you  will  also  find  it  in  the  Price  Current  [Hear,  hear !] ;  and 
every  free  nation,  every  civilized  people  —  every  people  that  rises 
from  barbarism  to  industry  and  intelligence  becomes  a  better 
customer. 

A  savage  is  a  man  of  one  story,  and  that  one  story  a  cellar. 
When  a  man  begins  to  be  civilized,  he  raises  another  story.  When 
you  Christianize  and  civilize  the  man,  you  put  story  upon  story,  for 
you  develop  faculty  after  faculty;  and  you  have  to  supply  every 
story  with  your  productions.  The  savage  is  a  man  one  story  deep ; 
the  civilized  man  is  thirty  stories  deep.  [Applause.]  Now,  if  you 


DEVELOPMENT   OF    THE  FULL   ARGUMENT 


195 


go  to  a  lodging-house,  where  there  are  three  or  four  men,  your 
sales  to  them  may,  no  doubt,  be  worth  something;  but  if  you  go 
to  a  lodging-house  like  some  of  those  which  I  saw  in  Edinburgh, 
which  seemed  to  contain  about  twenty  stories  ["Oh,  oh!"  and 
interruption],  every  story  of  which  is  full,  and  all  who  occupy  buy 
of  you  —  which  is  the  better  customer,  the  man  who  is  drawn 
out,  or  the  man  who  is  pinched  up?  [Laughter.]  Now,  there  is 
in  this  a  great  and  sound  principle  of  economy.  ["Yah,  yah!" 
from  the  passage  outside  the  hall,  and  loud  laughter.]  If  the 
South  should  be  rendered  independent  —  [At  this  juncture  min- 
gled cheering  and  hissing  became  immense ;  half  the  audience  rose 
to  their  feet,  waving  hats  and  handkerchiefs,  and  in  every  part  of 
the  hall  there  was  the  greatest  commotion  and  uproar.]  You  have 
had  your  turn  now;  now  let  me  have  mine  again.  [Loud  ap- 
plause and  laughter.]  It  is  a  little  inconvenient  to  talk  against 
the  wind;  but  after  all,  if  you  will  just  keep  good-natured  —  I  am 
not  going  to  lose  my  temper;  will  you  watch  yours?  [Applause.] 
Besides  all  that,  it  rests  me,  and  gives  me  a  chance,  you  know,  to 
get  my  breath.  [Applause  and  hisses.]  And  I  think  that  the  bark 
of  those  men  is  worse  than  their  bite.  They  do  not  mean  any 
harm  —  they  don't  know  any  better.  [Loud  laughter,  applause, 
hisses,  and  continued  uproar.]  I  was  saying,  when  these  re- 
sponses broke  in,  that  it  was  worth  our  while  to  consider  both 
alternatives.  What  will  be  the  result  if  this  present  struggle  shall 
eventuate  in  the  separation  of  America,  and  making  the  South  — 
[loud  applause,  hisses,  hooting,  and  cries  of  "Bravo!"]  —  a  slave 
territory  exclusively —  [cries  of  "No,  no!"  and  laughter]  —  and 
the  North  a  free  territory,  —  what  will  be  the  final  result  ?  You 
will  lay  the  foundation  for  carrying  the  slave  population  clear 
through  to  the  Pacific  Ocean.  This  is  the  first  step.  There  is  not 
a  man  that  has  been  a  leader  of  the  South  any  time  within  these 
twenty  years  that  has  not  had  this  for  a  plan.  It  was  for  this  that 
Texas  was  invaded,  first  by  colonists,  next  by  marauders,  until 
it  was  wrested  from  Mexico.  It  was  for  this  that  they  engaged 
in  the  Mexican  War  itself,  by  which  the  vast  territory  reaching  to 
the  Pacific  was  added  to  the  Union.  Never  for  a  moment  have 
they  given  up  the  plan  of  spreading  the  American  institutions,  as 
they  call  them,  straight  through  toward  the  West,  until  the  slave, 


196 


ENGLISH  COMPOSITION 


who  has  washed  his  feet  in  the  Atlantic,  shall  be  carried  to  wash 
them  in  the  Pacific.  [Cries  of  "Question,"  and  uproar.]  There ' 
I  have  got  that  statement  out,  and  you  cannot  put  it  back.  [Laugh- 
ter and  applause.]  Now,  let  us  consider  the  prospect.  If  the 
South  becomes  a  slave  empire,  what  relation  will  it  have  to  you 
as  a  customer?  [A  voice:  "Or  any  other  man."  Laughter.]  It 
would  be  an  empire  of  twelve  millions  of  people.  Now,  of  these, 
eight  millions  are  white,  and  four  millions  black.  [A  voice :  "How 
many  have  you  got?"  Applause  and  laughter.  Another  voice: 
"Free  your  own  slaves!"]  Consider  that  one-third  of  the  whole 
are  the  miserably  poor,  unbuying  blacks.  [Cries  of  "No,  no!" 
"Yes,  yes!"  and  interruption.]  You  do  not  manufacture  much 
for  them.  [Hisses,  "Oh!"  "No."]  You  have  not  got  ma- 
chinery coarse  enough.  [Laughter,  and  "No."]  Your  labor  is 
too  skilled  by  far  to  manufacture  bagging  and  linsey-woolsey.  [A 
Southerner:  "We  are  going  to  free  them,  every  one."]  Then  you 
and  I  agree  exactly.  [Laughter.]  One  other  third  consists  of  a 
poor,  unskilled,  degraded  white  population;  and  the  remaining 
one-third,  which  is  a  large  allowance,  we  will  say,  intelligent  and 
rich. 

Now  here  are  twelve  million  of  people,  and  only  one-third  of 
them  are  customers  that  can  afford  to  buy  the  kind  of  goods 
that  you  bring  to  market.  [Interruption  and  uproar.]  My 
friends,  I  saw  a  man  once,  who  was  a  little  late  at  a  railway  station, 
chase  an  express  train.  He  did  not  catch  it.  [Laughter.]  If 
you  are  going  to  stop  this  meeting,  you  have  got  to  stop  it  before 
I  speak ;  for  after  I  have  got  the  things  out,  you  may  chase  as  long 
as  you  please  —  you  would  not  catch  them.  [Laughter  and  inter- 
ruption.] But  there  is  luck  in  leisure;  I'm  going  to  take  it  easy. 
[Laughter.]  Two-thirds  of  the  population  of  the  Southern  States 
to-day  are  non-purchasers  of  English  goods.  [A  voice:  "No,  they 
are  not;"  "No,  no  I"  and  uproar.]  Now  you  must  recollect 
another  fact  —  namely,  that  this  is  going  on  clear  through  to  the 
Pacific  Ocean ;  and  if  by  sympathy  or  help  you  establish  a  slave 
empire,  you  sagacious  Britons  —  ["Oh,  oh!"  and  hooting]  —  if 
you  like  it  better,  then,  I  will  leave  the  adjective  out  —  [laughter, 
Hear !  and  applause]  —  are  busy  in  favoring  the  establishment  of 
an  empire  from  ocean  to  ocean  that  should  have  fewest  customers 


DEVELOPMENT   OF   THE  FULL  ARGUMENT 


197 


and  the  largest  non-buying  population.  [Applause,  "No,  no!" 
A  voice:  "I  thought  it  was  the  happy  people  that  populated 
fastest."] 

Now,  what  can  England  make  for  the  poor  white  population 
of  such  a  future  empire,  and  for  her  slave  population?  What 
carpets,  what  linens,  what  cottons  can  you  sell  them?  What 
machines,  what  looking-glasses,  what  combs,  what  leather,  what 
books,  what  pictures,  what  engravings?  [A  voice:  "We'll  sell 
them  ships."]  You  may  sell  ships  to  a  few,  but  what  ships  can 
you  sell  to  two-thirds  of  the  population  of  poor  whites  and  blacks  ? 
[Applause.]  A  little  bagging  and  a  little  linsey-woolsey,  a  few 
whips  and  manacles,  are  all  that  you  can  sell  for  the  slave.  [Great 
applause  and  uproar.]  This  very  day,  in  the  slave  States  of 
America  there  are  eight  millions  out  of  twelve  millions  that  are 
not,  and  cannot  be,  your  customers  from  the  very  laws  of  trade. 
[A  voice:  "Then  how  are  they  clothed?"  and  interruption.]  .  .  . 

But  I  know  that  you  say,  you  cannot  help  sympathizing  with  a 
gallant  people.  [Hear,  hear!]  They  are  the  weaker  people,  the 
minority;  and  you  cannot  help  going  with  the  minority  who  are 
struggling  for  their  rights  against  the  majority.  Nothing  could  be 
more  generous,  when  a  weak  party  stands  for  its  own  legitimate 
rights  against  imperious  pride  and  power,  than  to  sympathize 
with  the  weak.  But  who  ever  sympathized  with  a  weak  thief, 
because  three  constables  had  got  hold  of  him  ?  [Hear,  hear !] 
And  yet  the  one  thief  in  three  policemen's  hands  is  the  weaker  party. 
I  suppose  you  would  sympathize  with  him.  [Hear,  hear !  laughter, 
and  applause.]  Why,  when  that  infamous  king  of  Naples, 
Bomba,  was  driven  into  Gaeta  by  Garibaldi  with  his  immortal 
band  of  patriots,  and  Cavour  sent  against  him  the  army  of  Northern 
Italy,  who  was  the  weaker  party  then?  The  tyrant  and  his 
minions;  and  the  majority  was  with  the  noble  Italian  patriots, 
struggling  for  liberty.  I  never  heard  that  Old  England  sent 
deputations  to  King  Bomba,  and  yet  his  troops  resisted  bravely 
there.  [Laughter  and  interruption.]  To-day  the  majority  of 
the  people  of  Rome  is  with  Italy.  Nothing  but  French  bayonets 
keeps  her  from  going  back  to  the  kingdom  of  Italy,  to  which  she 
belongs.  •  Do  you  sympathize  with  the  minority  in  Rome  or  the 
majority  in  Italy?  [A  voice:  "With  Italy."]  To-day  the  South 


I98  ENGLISH  COMPOSITION 

is  the  minority  in  America,  and  they  are  fighting  for  independence ! 
For  what?  [Uproar.  A  voice:  "Three  cheers  for  independ- 
ence!" and  hisses.]  I  could  wish  so  much  bravery  had  a  better 
cause,  and  that  so  much  self-denial  had  been  less  deluded ;  that 
the  poisonous  and  venomous  doctrine  of  State  rights  might  have 
been  kept  aloof;  that  so  many  gallant  spirits,  such  as  Jackson, 
might  still  have  lived.  [Great  applause  and  loud  cheers,  again 
and  again  renewed.]  The  force  of  these  facts,  historical  and 
incontrovertible,  cannot  be  broken,  except  by  diverting  attention 
by  an  attack  upon  the  North.  It  is  said  that  the  North  is  fighting 
for  Union,  and  not  for  emancipation.  The  North  is  fighting  for 
Union,  for  that  insures  emancipation.  [Loud  cheers,  "Oh,  oh!" 
"No,  no!"  and  cheers.]  A  great  many  men  say  to  ministers  of 
the  Gospel:  "You  pretend  to  be  preaching  and  working  for  the 
love  of  the  people.  Why,  you  are  all  the  time  preaching  for  the 
sake  of  the  Church."  What  does  the  minister  say?  "It  is  by 
means  of  the  Church  that  we  help  the  people,"  and  when  men 
say  that  we  are  fighting  for  the  Union,  I  too  say  we  are  fighting 
for  the  Union.  [Hear,  hear!  and  a  voice:  "That's  right."]  But 
the  motive  determines  the  value ;  and  why  are  we  fighting  for  the 
Union?  Because  we  never  shall  forget  the  testimony  of  our  ene- 
mies. They  have  gone  off  declaring  that  the  Union  in  the  hands 
of  the  North  was  fatal  to  slavery.  [Loud  applause.]  There 
is  testimony  in  court  for  you.  [A  voice:  "See  that,"  and 
laughter.]  .  .  . 

In  the  first  place  I  am  ashamed  to  confess  that  such  was  the 
thoughtlessness  —  [interruption]  —  such  was  the  stupor  of  the 
North  —  [renewed  interruption]  —  you  will  get  a  word  at  a  time ; 
to-morrow  will  let  folks  see  what  it  is  you  don't  want  to  hear  — 
that  for  a  period  of  twenty-five  years  she  went  to  sleep,  and  per- 
mitted herself  to  be  drugged  and  poisoned  with  the  Southern  prej- 
udice against  black  men.  [Applause  and  uproar.]  The  evil  was 
made  worse,  because,  when  any  object  whatever  has  caused  anger 
between  political  parties,  a  political  animosity  arises  against  that 
object,  no  matter  how  innocent  in  itself;  no  matter  what  were  the 
original  influences  which  excited  the  quarrel.  Thus  the  colored 
man  has  been  the  football  between  the  two  parties  in  the  North, 
and  has  suffered  accordingly.  I  confess  it  to  my  shame.  But 


DEVELOPMENT  OF    THE  FULL  ARGUMENT          199 

I  am  speaking  now  on  my  own  ground,  for  I  began  twenty-five  years 
ago,  with  a  small  party,  to  combat  the  unjust  dislike  of  the  colored 
man.  [Loud  applause,  dissension,  and  uproar.  The  inter- 
ruption at  this  point  became  so  violent  that  the  friends  of  Mr. 
Beecher  throughout  the  hall  rose  to  their  feet,  waving  hats  and 
handkerchiefs,  and  renewing  their  shouts  and  applause.  The 
interruption  lasted  some  minutes.]  Well,  I  have  lived  to  see  a 
total  revolution  in  the  Northern  feeling  —  I  stand  here  to  bear 
solemn  witness  of  that.  It  is  not  my  opinion ;  it  is  my  knowledge. 
[Great  uproar.]  Those  men  who  undertook  to  stand  up  for  the 
rights  of  all  men  —  black  as  well  as  white  —  have  increased  in 
number;  and  now  what  party  in  the  North  represents  those  men 
that  resist  the  evil  prejudices  of  past  years?  The  Republicans 
are  that  party.  [Loud  applause.]  And  who  are  those  men  in 
the  North  that  have  oppressed  the  negro?  They  are  the  Peace 
Democrats;  and  the  prejudice  for  "which  in  England  you  are  at- 
tempting to  punish  me,  is  a  prejudice  raised  by  the  men  who  have 
opposed  me  all  my  life.  These  pro-slavery  Democrats  abuse  the 
negro.  I  defended  him,  and  they  mobbed  me  for  doing  it.  Oh, 
justice!  [Loud  laughter,  applause,  and  hisses.]  This  is  as  if 
a  man  should  commit  an  assault,  maim  and  wound  a  neighbor, 
and  a  surgeon  being  called  in  should  begin  to  dress  his  wounds, 
and  by  and  by  a  policeman  should  come  and  collar  the  surgeon  and 
haul  him  off  to  prison  on  account  of  the  wounds  which  he  was 
healing. 

Now,  I  told  you  I  would  not  flinch  from  anything.  I  am  going 
to  read  you  some  questions  that  were  sent  after  me  from  Glasgow, 
purporting  to  be  from  a  workingman.  [Great  interruption.]  If 
those  pro-slavery  interrupters  think  they  will  tire  me  out,  they  will 
do  more  than  eight  millions  in  America  could.  [Applause  and 
renewed  interruption.  ]  I  was  reading  a  question  on  your  side  too. 
"Is  it  not  a  fact  that  in  most  of  the  Northern  States  laws  exist 
precluding  negroes  from  equal  civil  and  political  rights  with  the 
whites?  That  in  the  State  of  New  York  the  negro  has  to  be  the 
possessor  of  at  least  $250  worth  of  property  to  entitle  him  to  the 
privileges  of  a  white  citizen  ?  That  in  some  of  the  Northern  States 
the  colored  man,  whether  bond  or  free,  is  by  law  excluded  alto- 
gether, and  not  suffered  to  enter  the  State  limits,  under  severe 


200  ENGLISH   COMPOSITION 

penalties?  and  is  not  Mr.  Lincoln's  own  State  one  of  them?  and 
in  view  of  the  fact  that  the  twenty  million  dollars'  compensation 
which  was  promised  to  Missouri  in  aid  of  emancipation  was  de- 
feated in  the  last  Congress  (the  strongest  Republican  Congress  that 
ever  assembled),  what  has  the  North  done  toward  emancipation?" 
Now,  then,  there's  a  dose  for  you.  [A  voice:  "Answer  it."] 
And  I  will  address  myself  to  the  answering  of  it.  And  first,  the 
bill  for  emancipation  in  Missouri,  to  which  this  money  was  denied, 
was  a  bill  which  was  drawn  by  what  we  call  "log-rollers,"  who 
inserted  in  it  an  enormously  disproportioned  price  for  the  slaves. 
The  Republicans  offered  to  give  them  ten  million  dollars  for  the 
slaves  in  Missouri,  and  they  outvoted  it  because  they  could  not 
get  twelve  million  dollars.  Already  half  the  slave  population  had 
been  "run"  down  South,  and  yet  they  came  up  to  Congress  to 
get  twelve  million  dollars  for  what  was  not  worth  ten  millions, 
nor  even  eight  millions.  Now  as  to  those  States  that  had  passed 
"black"  laws,  as  we  call  them;  they  are  filled  with  Southern 
emigrants.  The  southern  parts  of  Ohio,  the  southern  part  of 
Indiana,  where  I  myself  lived  for  years,  and  which  I  knew  like  a 
book,  the  southern  part  of  Illinois,  where  Mr.  Lincoln  lives  — 
[great  uproar]  —  these  parts  are  largely  settled  by  emigrants  from 
Kentucky,  Tennessee,  Georgia,  Virginia,  and  North  Carolina, 
and  it  was  their  vote,  or  the  Northern  votes  pandering  for  political 
reasons  to  theirs,  that  passed  in  those  States  the  infamous  "black  " 
laws;  and  the  Republicans  in  these  States  have  a  record,  clean  and 
white,  as  having  opposed  these  laws  in  every  instance  as  "in- 
famous." Now  as  to  the  State  of  New  York ;  it  is  asked  whether 
a  negro  is  not  obliged  to  have  a  certain  freehold  property,  or  a 
certain  amount  of  property,  before  he  can  vote.  It  is  so  still  in 
North  Carolina  and  Rhode  Island  for  white  folks  —  it  is  so  in 
New  York  State.  [Mr.  Beecher's  voice  slightly  failed  him  here, 
and  he  was  interrupted  by  a  person  who  tried  to  imitate  him. 
Cries  of  "Shame!"  and  "Turn  him  out!"]  I  am  not  under- 
taking to  say  that  these  faults  of  the  North,  which  were  brought 
upon  them  by  the  bad  example  and  influence  of  the  South,  are 
all  cured;  but  I  do  say  that  they  are  in  process  of  cure  which 
promises,  if  unimpeded  by  foreign  influence,  to  make  all  such 
odious  distinctions  vanish. 


DEVELOPMENT  OF   THE  FULL  ARGUMENT          2OI 

There  is  another  fact  that  I  wish  to  allude  to  —  not  for  the  sake 
of  reproach  or  blame,  but  by  way  of  claiming  your  more  lenient 
consideration  —  and  that  is,  that  slavery  was  entailed  upon  us  by 
your  action.  [Hear,  hear !]  Against  the  earnest  protests  of  the 
colonists  the  then  government  of  Great  Britain  —  I  will  concede 
not  knowing  what  were  the  mischiefs  —  ignorantly,  but  in  point 
of  fact,  forced  slave  traffic  on  the  unwilling  colonists.  [Great 
uproar,  in  the  midst  of  which  one  individual  was  lifted  up  and 
carried  out  of  the  room  amid  cheers  and  hisses.] 

THE  CHAIRMAN  :  If  you  would  only  sit  down,  no  disturbance 
would  take  place. 

The  disturbance  having  subsided, 

MR.  BEECHER  said :  I  was  going  to  ask  you,  suppose  a  child  is 
born  with  hereditary  disease;  suppose  this  disease  was  entailed 
upon  him  by  parents  who  had  contracted  it  by  their  own  mis- 
conduct, would  it  be  fair  that  those  parents  that  had  brought  into 
the  world  the  diseased  child,  should  rail  at  the  child  because  it 
was  diseased?  ["No,  no!"]  Would  not  the  child  have  a  right 
to  turn  round  and  say:  "Father,  it  was  your  fault  that  I  had  it, 
and  you  ought  to  be  pleased  to  be  patient  with  my  deficiencies  "  ? 
[Applause  and  hisses,  and  cries  of  "Order!"  Great  interruption 
and  great  disturbance  here  took  place  on  the  right  of  the  platform ; 
and  the  chairman  said  that  if  the  persons  around  the  unfortunate 
individual  who  had  caused  the  disturbance  would  allow  him  to  speak 
alone,  but  not  assist  him  in  making  the  disturbance,  it  might  soon  be 
put  an  end  to.  The  interruption  continued  until  another  person 
was  carried  out  of  the  hall.]  Mr.  Beecher  continued:  I  do  not 
ask  that  you  should  justify  slavery  in  us,  because  it  was  wrong  in 
you  two  hundred  years  ago ;  but  having  ignorantly  been  the  means 
of  fixing  it  upon  us,  now  that  we  are  struggling  with  mortal  struggles 
to  free  ourselves  from  it,  we  have  a  right  to  your  tolerance,  your 
patience,  and  charitable  constructions. 

No  man  can  unveil  the  future ;  no  man  can  tell  what  revolutions 
are  about  to  break  upon  the  world ;  no  man  can  tell  what  destiny 
belongs  to  France,  nor  to  any  of  the  European  powers;  but  one 
thing  is  certain,  that  in  the  exigencies  of  the  future  there  will  be 
combinations  and  recombinations,  and  that  those  nations  that  are 
of  the  same  faith,  the  same  blood,  and  the  same  substantial  interests, 


202  ENGLISH  COMPOSITION 

ought  not  to  be  alienated  from  each  other,  but  ought  to  stand  to- 
gether. [Immense  cheering  and  hisses.]  I  do  not  say  that  you 
ought  not  to  be  in  the  most  friendly  alliance  with  France  or  with 
Germany;  but  I  do  say  that  your  own  children,  the  offspring  of 
England,  ought  to  be  nearer  to  you  than  any  people  of  strange 
tongue.  [A  voice:  "Degenerate  sons,"  applause  and  hisses; 
another  voice:  "What  about  the  Trent?''1]  If  there  had  been 
any  feelings  of  bitterness  in  America,  let  me  tell  you  that  they  had 
been  excited,  rightly  or  wrongly,  under  the  impression  that  Great 
Britain  was  going  to  intervene  between  us  and  our  own  lawful 
struggle.  [A  voice:  "No!"  and  applause.]  With  the  evidence 
that  there  is  no  such  intention  all  bitter  feelings  will  pass  away. 
[Applause.]  We  do  not  agree  with  the  recent  doctrine  of  neutrality 
as  a  question  of  law.  But  it  is  past,  and  we  are  not  disposed  to 
raise  that  question.  We  accept  it  now  as  a  fact,  and  we  say  that 
the  utterance  of  Lord  Russell  at  Blairgowrie  —  [Applause,  hisses, 
and  a  voice:  "What  about  Lord  Brougham?"]  —  together  with 
the  declaration  of  the  government  in  stopping  war  steamers  here  — 
[great  uproar,  and  applause]  —  has  gone  far  toward  quieting 
every  fear  and  removing  every  apprehension  from  our  minds. 
[Uproar  and  shouts  of  applause.]  And  now  in  the  future  it  is  the 
work  of  every  good  man  and  patriot  not  to  create  divisions,  but  to 
do  the  things  that  will  make  for  peace.  ["Oh,  oh  !"  and  laugh- 
ter.] On  our  part  it  shall  be  done.  [Applause  and  hisses,  and 
"No,  no  ! "]  On  your  part  it  ought  to  be  done ;  and  when  in  any 
of  the  convulsions  that  come  upon  the  world,  Great  Britain  finds 
herself  struggling  single-handed  against  the  gigantic  powers  that 
spread  oppression  and  darkness  —  [applause,  hisses,  and  uproar] 
—  there  ought  to  be  such  cordiality  that  she  can  turn  and  say  to  her 
first-born  and  most  illustrious  child,  "Come !"  [Hear,  hear !  ap- 
plause, tremendous  cheers,  and  uproar.]  I  will  not  say  that  Eng- 
land cannot  again,  as  hitherto,  single-handed  manage  any  power  — 
[applause  and  uproar]  —  but  I  will  say  that  England  and  America 
together  for  religion  and  liberty  —  [A  voice :  "  Soap,  soap,"  uproar, 
and  great  applause]  —are  a  match  for  the  world.  [Applause; 
a  voice:  "They  don't  want  any  more  soft  soap."]  Now,  gentle- 
men and  ladies —  [A  voice:  "Sam  Slick";  and  another  voice: 
"Ladies  and  gentlemen,  if  you  please"]  —  when  I  came,  I  was 


DEVELOPMENT  OF    THE  FULL  ARGUMENT          203 

asked  whether  I  would  answer  questions,  and  I  very  readily  con- 
sented to  do  so,  as  I  had  in  other  places ;  but  I  will  tell  you  it  was 
because  I  expected  to  have  the  opportunity  of  speaking  with  some 
sort  of  ease  and  quiet.  [A  voice:  "So  you  have."]  I  have  for 
an  hour  and  a  half  spoken  against  a  storm  —  [Hear,  hear !]  —  and 
you  yourselves  are  witnesses  that,  by  the  interruption,  I  have  been 
obliged  to  strive  with  my  voice,  so  that  I  no  longer  have  the  power 
to  control  this  assembly.  [Applause.]  And  although  I  am  in 
spirit  perfectly  willing  to  answer  any  question,  and  more  than  glad 
of  the  chance,  yet  I  am  by  this  very  unnecessary  opposition  to- 
night incapacitated  physically  from  doing  it.  Ladies  and  gentle- 
men, I  bid  you  good-evening. 


THE  TRAINING  OF  THE   INTELLECT  » 
WOODROW  WILSON 

MR.  TOASTMASTER,  MR.  PRESIDENT,  AND  GENTLEMEN:  — 
I  must  confess  to  you  that  I  came  here  with  very  serious  thoughts 
this  evening,  because  I  have  been  laboring  under  the  conviction 
for  a  long  time  that  the  object  of  a  university  is  to  educate,  and  I 
have  not  seen  the  universities  of  this  country  achieving  any  re- 
markable or  disturbing  success  in  that  direction.  I  have  found 
everywhere  the  note  which  I  must  say  I  have  heard  sounded  once 
or  twice  to-night  —  a  note  of  apology  for  the  intellectual  side  of 
the  university.  You  hear  it  at  all  universities.  Learning  is  on 
the  defensive,  is  actually  on  the  defensive,  among  college  men,  and 
they  are  being  asked  by  way  of  concession  to  bring  that  also  into 
the  circle  of  their  interests.  Is  it  not  time  we  stopped  asking  in- 
dulgence for  learning  and  proclaimed  its  sovereignty?  Is  it  not 
time  we  reminded  the  college  men  of  this  country  that  they  have  no 
right  to  any  distinctive  place  in  any  community,  unless  they  can 
show  it  by  intellectual  achievement?  that  if  a  university  is  a  place 
for  distinction  at  all,  it  must  be  distinguished  by  the  conquests  of 

1  An  address  before  the  Phi  Beta  Kappa  Society  of  Yale  University. 
Reprinted  from  the  Yale  Alumni  Weekly  by  the  kind  permission  of  the 
Editors. 


204 


ENGLISH  COMPOSITION 


the  mind?  I  for  niy  part  tell  you  plainly  that  that  is  my  motto, 
that  I  have  entered  the  field  to  fight  for  that  thesis,  and  that  for 
that  thesis  only  do  I  care  to  fight. 

The  toastmaster  of  the  evening  said,  and  said  truly,  that  this  is 
the  season  when,  for  me,  it  was  most  difficult  to  break  away  from 
regular  engagements  in  which  I  am  involved  at  home.  But  when 
I  was  invited  to  a  Phi  Beta  Kappa  banquet,  it  had  an  unusual 
sound,  and  I  felt  that  that  was  the  particular  kind  of  invitation 
which  it  was  my  duty  and  privilege  to  accept.  One  of  the  prob- 
lems of  the  American  university  now  is  how,  among  a  great  many 
other  competing  interests,  to  give  places  of  distinction  to  men  who 
win  distinction  in  the  class  room.  Why  don't  we  give  you  men  the 
Y  here  and  the  P  at  Princeton,  because,  after  all,  you  have  done 
the  particular  thing  which  distinguishes  Yale  or  Princeton  ?  Not 
that  these  other  things  are  not  worth  doing,  but  they  may  be  done 
anywhere.  They  may  be  done  in  athletic  clubs  where  there  is  no 
study,  but  this  thing  can  be  done  only  here.  This  is  the  distinctive 
mark  of  the  place. 

A  good  many  years  ago,  just  two  weeks  before  the  midyear  ex- 
aminations, the  faculty  of  Princeton  was  foolish  enough  to  permit 
a  very  unwise  evangelist  to  come  to  the  place  and  to  upset  the  town. 
And  while  an  assisting  undergraduate  was  going  from  room  to 
room,  one  undergraduate  secured  his  door  and  put  this  notice  out, 
"I  am  a  Christian  and  am  studying  for  examinations."  Now 
I  want  to  say  that  that  is  exactly  what  a  Christian  undergraduate 
would  be  doing  at  that  time  of  the  year.  He  would  not  be  attend- 
ing religious  meetings,  no  matter  how  beneficial  it  would  be  to  him. 
He  would  be  studying  for  examinations,  not  merely  for  the  purpose 
of  passing  them,  but  from  his  sense  of  duty. 

We  get  a  good  many  men  at  Princeton  from  certain  secondary 
schools  which  say  a  great  deal  about  their  earnest  desire  to  cultivate 
character  among  their  students,  and  I  hear  a  great  deal  about 
character  being  the  object  of  education.  I  take  leave  to  believe 
that  a  man  who  cultivates  his  character  consciously  will  cultivate 
nothing  except  what  will  make  him  intolerable  to  his  fellow-men. 
If  your  object  in  life  is  to  make  a  fine  fellow  of  yourself,  you  will 
not  succeed,  and  you  will  not  be  acceptable  to  really  fine  fellows. 
Character,  gentlemen,  is  a  by-product.  It  comes,  whether  you 


DEVELOPMENT  OF   THE  FULL  ARGUMENT        20$ 

will  or  not,  as  a  consequence  of  a  life  devoted  to  the  nearest  duty, 
and  the  place  in  which  character  would  be  cultivated,  if  it  be  a 
place  of  study,  is  a  place  where  study  is  the  object  and  character 
the  result. 

Not  long  ago  a  gentleman  approached  me  in  great  excitement 
just  after  the  entrance  examinations.  He  said  we  had  made  a 
great  mistake  in  not  taking  so  and  so  from  a  certain  school  which 
he  named.  "But,"  I  said,  "he  did  not  pass  the  entrance  examina- 
tions." He  went  over  the  boy's  moral  excellences  again.  "Par- 
don me,"  I  said,  "you  do  not  understand.  He  did  not  pass  the 
entrance  examinations.  Now,"  I  said,  "I  want  you  to  under- 
stand that  if  the  Angel  Gabriel  applied  for  admission  tc  Princeton 
University  and  could  not  pass  the  entrance  examinations,  he  would 
not  be  admitted.  He  would  be  wasting  his  time."  It  seemed  a 
new  idea  to  him.  This  boy  had  come  from  a  school  which  culti- 
vated character,  and  he  was  a  nice,  lovable  fellow  with  a  present- 
able character.  Therefore,  he  ought  to  be  admitted  to  any  uni- 
versity. 1  fail  to  see  it  from  this  point  of  view,  for  a  university  is  an 
institution  of  purpose.  We  have  in  some  previous  years  had  pity 
for  young  gentlemen  who  were  not  sufficiently  acquainted  with  the 
elements  of  a  preparatory  course.  They  have  been  dropped  at 
the  examinations,  and  I  have  always  felt  that  we  have  been  guilty 
of  an  offense,  and  have  made  their  parents  spend  money  to  no 
avail  and  the  youngsters  spend  their  time  to  no  avail.  And 
so  I  think  that  all  university  men  ought  to  rouse  themselves 
now  and  understand  what  is  the  object  of  a  university.  The 
object  of  a  university  is  intellect;  as  a  university  its  only  object 
is  intellect.  As  a  body  of  young  men  there  ought  to  be  other 
things,  there  ought  to  be  diversions  to  release  them  from  the  con- 
stant strain  of  effort,  there  ought  to  be  things  that  gladden  the  heart 
and  moments  of  leisure,  but  as  a  university  the  only  object  is 
intellect. 

The  reason  why  I  chose  the  subject  that  I  am  permitted  to 
speak  upon  to-night  —  the  function  of  scholarship  —  was  that  I 
wanted  to  point  out  the  function  of  scholarship  not  merely  in 
the  university  but  in  the  nation.  In  a  country  constituted  as  ours 
is  the  relation  in  which  education  stands  is  a  very  important  one. 
Our  whole  theory  has  been  based  upon  an  enlightened  citizenship 


206  ENGLISH  COMPOSITION 

and  therefore  the  function  of  scholarship  must  be  for  the  nation 
as  well  as  for  the  university  itself.  I  mean  the  function  of  such 
scholarship  as  undergraduates  get.  That  is  not  a  violent  amount 
in  any  case.  You  cannot  make  a  scholar  of  a  man,  except  by  some 
largess  of  Providence  in  his  make-up,  by  the  time  he  is  twenty- 
one  or  twenty-two  years  of  age.  There  have  been  gentlemen  who 
have  made  a  reputation  by  twenty-one  or  twenty-two,  but  it  is 
generally  in  some  little  province  of  knowledge,  so  small  that  a 
small  effort  can  conquer  it.  You  do  not  make  scholars  by  that 
time,  you  do  not  often  make  scholars  by  seventy  that  are  worth 
boasting  of.  The  process  of  scholarship,  so  far  as  the  real  scholar 
is  concerned,  is  an  unending  process,  and  knowledge  is  pushed 
forward  only  a  very  little  by  his  best  efforts.  It  is  evident,  of 
course,  that  the  most  you  can  contribute  to  a  man  in  his  under- 
graduate years  is  not  equipment  in  the  exact  knowledge  which  is 
characteristic  of  the  scholar,  but  the  inspiration  of  the  spirit  of 
scholarship.  The  most  that  you  can  give  a  youngster  is  the  spirit 
of  the  scholar. 

Now  the  spirit  of  the  scholar  in  a  country  like  ours  must  be  a 
spirit  related  to  the  national  life.  It  cannot,  therefore,  be  a  spirit 
of  pedantry.  I  suppose  that  it  is  a  sufficient  working  conception 
of  pedantry  to  say  that  it  is  knowledge  divorced  from  life.  It  is 
knowledge  so  closeted,  so  desecrated,  so  stripped  of  the  significances 
of  life  itself,  that  it  is  a  thing  apart  and  not  connected  with  the 
vital  processes  in  the  world  about  us. 

There  is  a  great  place  in  every  nation  for  the  spirit  of  scholarship, 
and  it  seems  to  me  that  there  never  was  a  time  when  the  spirit  of 
scholarship  was  more  needed  in  affairs  than  it  is  in  this  country  at 
this  time. 

We  are  thinking  just  now  with  our  emotions  and  not  with  our 
minds,  we  are  moved  by  impulse  and  not  by  judgment.  We  are 
drawing  away  from  things  with  blind  antipathy.  The  spirit 
of  knowledge  is  that  you  must  base  your  conclusions  on  adequate 
grounds.  Make  sure  that  you  are  going  to  the  real  sources  of 
knowledge,  discovering  what  the  real  facts  are  before  you  move 
forward  to  the  next  process,  which  is  the  process  of  clear  thinking. 
By  clear  thinking  I  do  not  mean  logical  thinking.  I  do  not  mean 
that  life  is  based  upon  any  logical  system  whatever.  Life  is 


DEVELOPMENT  OF   THE  FULL  ARGUMENT         207 

essentially  illogical.  The  world  is  governed  now  by  a  tumultuous 
house  of  commons  made  up  of  the  passions,  and  we  should  pray 
God  that  the  good  passions  should  outvote  the  bad  passions.  But 
the  movement  of  impulse,  of  motive,  is  the  stuff  of  passion,  and 
therefore  clear  thinking  about  life  is  not  logical,  symmetrical 
thinking,  but  it  is  interpretative  thinking,  thinking  that  sees  the 
secret  motive  of  things,  thinking  that  penetrates  deep  places 
where  are  the  pulses  of  life. 

Now  scholarship  ought  to  lay  these  impulses  bare  just  as  the 
physician  can  lay  bare  the  seat  of  life  in  our  bodies.  That  is  not 
scholarship  which  goes  to  work  upon  the  mere  formal  pedantry 
of  logical  reasoning,  but  that  is  scholarship  which  searches  for  the 
heart  of  a  man.  The  spirit  of  scholarship  gives  us  catholicity  of 
thinking,  the  readiness  to  understand  that  there  will  constantly 
swing  into  our  ken  new  items  not  dreamed  of  in  our  philosophy ; 
not  simply  to  draw  our  conclusions  from  the  data  that  we  have 
had,  but  that  all  this  is  under  constant  mutation,  and  that  there- 
fore new  phases  of  life  will  come  upon  us  and  a  new  adjustment  of 
our  conclusions  will  be  necessary.  Our  thinking  must  be  detached 
and  disinterested  thinking. 

The  particular  objection  that  I  have  to  the  undergraduate  form- 
ing his  course  of  study  on  his  future  profession  is  this  —  that  from 
start  to  finish,  from  the  time  he  enters  the  university  until  he  finishes 
his  career,  his  thought  will  be  centered  upon  particular  interests. 
He  will  be  immersed  in  the  things  that  touch  his  profit  and  loss, 
and  a  man  is  not  free  to  think  inside  that  territory.  If  his  bread 
and  butter  is  going  to  be  affected,  if  he  is  always  thinking  in  the 
terms  of  his  own  profession;  he  is  not  thinking  for  the  nation. 
He  is  thinking  of  himself,  and  whether  he  be  conscious  of  it 
or  not,  he  can  never  throw  these  trammels  off.  He  will  only 
think  as  a  doctor,  or  a  lawyer,  or  a  banker.  He  will  not  be  free 
in  the  world  of  knowledge  and  in  the  circle  of  interests  which  make 
up  the  great  citizenship  of  the  country.  It  is  necessary  that  the 
spirit  of  scholarship  should  be  a  detached,  disinterested  spirit,  not 
immersed  in  a  particular  interest.  That  is  the  function  of  scholar- 
ship in  a  country  like  ours,  to  supply,  not  heat,  but  light,  to  suffuse 
things  with  the  calm  radiance  of  reason,  to  see  to  it  that  men  do 
not  act  hastily,  but  that  they  act  considerately,  that  they  obey  the 


208  ENGLISH  COMPOSITION 

truth.  The  fault  of  our  age  is  the  fault  of  hasty  action,  of  pre- 
mature judgments,  of  a  preference  for  ill-considered  action  over 
no  action  at  all.  Men  who  insist  upon  standing  still  and  doing 
a  little  thinking  before  they  do  any  acting  are  called  reactionaries. 
They  want  actually  to  react  to  a  state  in  which  they  can  be  allowed 
to  think.  They  want  for  a  little  while  to  withdraw  from  the  tur- 
moil of  party  controversy  and  see  where  they  stand  before  they 
commit  themselves  and  their  country  to  action  from  which  it  may 
not  be  possible  to  withdraw. 

The  whole  fault  of  the  modern  age  is  that  it  applies  to  every- 
thing a  false  standard  of  efficiency.  Efficiency  with  us  is  accom- 
plishment, whether  the  accomplishment  be  by  just  and  well-con- 
sidered means  or  not;  and  this  standard  of  achievement  it  is  that 
is  debasing  the  morals  of  our  age,  the  intellectual  morals  of  our  age. 
We  do  not  stop  to  do  things  thoroughly ;  we  do  not  stop  to  know 
why  we  do  things.  We  see  an  error  and  we  hastily  correct  it  by 
a  greater  error;  and  then  go  on  to  cry  that  the  age  is  corrupt. 

And  so  it  is,  gentlemen,  that  I  try  to  join  the  function  of  the 
university  with  the  great  function  of  the  national  life.  The  life 
of  this  country  is  going  to  be  revolutionized  and  purified  only  when 
the  universities  of  this  country  wake  up  to  the  fact  that  their  only 
reason  for  existing  is  intellectual,  that  the  objects  that  I  have  set 
forth,  so  far  as  undergraduate  life  is  concerned,  are  the  only  legiti- 
mate objects.  And  every  man  should  crave  for  his  university 
primacy  in  these  things,  primacy  in  other  things  also  if  they  may 
be  brought  in  without  enmity  to  it,  but  the  sacrifice  of  everything 
that  stands  in  the  way  of  these. 

For  my  part,  I  do  not  believe  that  it  is  athleticism  which  stands 
in  the  way.  Athletics  have  been  associated  with  the  achievements 
of  the  mind  in  many  a  successful  civilization.  There  is  no  difficulty 
in  uniting  vigor  of  body  with  achievement  of  mind,  but  there  is 
a  good  deal  of  difficulty  in  uniting  the  achievement  of  the  mind 
with  a  thousand  distracting  social  influences,  which  take  up  all 
our  ambitions,  which  absorb  all  our  thoughts,  which  lead  to  all 
our  arrangements  of  life,  and  then  leave  the  university  authorities 
the  residuum  of  our  attention,  after  we  are  through  with  the  things 
that  we  are  interested  in.  We  absolutely  changed  the  whole  course 
of  study  at  Princeton  and  revolutionized  the  methods  of  instruction 


DEVELOPMENT  OF   THE  FULL  ARGUMENT         209 

without  rousing  a  ripple  on  the  surface  of  the  alumni.  They  said 
those  things  were  intellectual,  they  were  our  business.  But  just 
as  soon  as  we  thought  to  touch  the  social  part  of  the  university, 
there  was  not  only  a  ripple,  but  the  whole  body  was  torn  to  its 
depths.  We  had  touched  the  real  things.  These  lay  in  triumphal 
competition  with  the  province  of  the  mind,  and  men's  attention  was 
so  absolutely  absorbed  in  these  things  that  it  was  impossible  for  us 
to  get  their  interest  enlisted  on  the  real  undertakings  of  the  uni- 
versity itself. 

Now  that  is  true  of  every  university  that  I  know  anything  about 
in  this  country,  and  if  the  Faculties  in  this  country  want  to  re- 
capture the  ground  that  they  have  lost,  they  must  begin  pretty 
soon,  and  they  must  go  into  the  battle  with  their  bridges  burned 
behind  them  so  that  it  will  be  of  no  avail  to  retreat.  If  I  had  a 
voice  to  which  the  university  men  of  this  country  might  listen,  that 
is  the  endeavor  to  which  my  ambition  would  lead  me  to  call. 

Refutation.  We  have  already  shown  how  you  are  to  build  up 
an  argument  on  your  side  of  a  question.  But  when  this  argument 
is  brought  before  the  public,  men  on  the  other  side  will  almost 
certainly  attack  your  arguments  and  raise  all  manner  of  objections 
against  them.  In  order  to  stand  your  ground  and  prove  your 
point,  you  must  have  answers  ready  for  these  objections.  This 
answer  to  the  objections  of  the  opposite  party,  this  process  of 
knocking  down  the  arguments  of  the  other  side  and  defending 
your  own  by  still  further  proof,  is  called  Refutation  or  Rebuttal. 
For  example,  you  claim  that  football  benefits  a  man  physically, 
and  show  certain  evidence  to  prove  that  it  does.  Your  opponents 
try  to  knock  down  your  point  by  producing  evidence  that  it  strains 
and  cripples  men  physically,  instead  of  developing  them.  Then 
you  must  refute  this  by  bringing  in  proof  that  very  few  men  are 
crippled,  while  a  very  large  number  are  developed.  This  last 
material  is  Refutation. 

\Vhen  you  know  beforehand  what  the  chief  objections  will  be, 
you  can  answer  them  in  your  first  or  main  argument,  thereby 
taking  the  wind  out  of  your  opponent's  sails.  In  this  case  your 
refutation  should  be  included  in  your  brief.  For  instance,  under 
the  heading  that  football  benefits  a  man  physically  you  could  have 


2io  ENGLISH   COMPOSITION 

these  subheads:  (a)  It  keeps  him  out  in  the  open  air;  (b)  It  re- 
quires a  healthy  diet;  (c)  It  develops  the  muscles;  (d)  It  does  not 
cause  lasting  physical  injuries.  Here  the  last  point  is  at  the  same 
time  a  part  of  your  brief  and  a  refutation  of  an  objection  almost 
certain  to  be  raised  by  the  other  side. 

Whether  you  bring  in  your  refutation  as  part  of  your  first  argu- 
ment or  write  it  in  a  later  article  after  the  other  side  has  made  its 
attack,  there  are  two  rules  that  you  should  always  bear  in  mind. 
The  first  is  to  have  plenty  of  good  reason  to  support  all  your  points. 
Frequently  the  question  will  reduce  itself  to  a  fight  between  you 
and  the  other  man  about  some  one  point;  and  the  side  which 
produces  the  most  evidence  will  win,  just  as  the  football  team 
which  gets  the  most  men  into  the  play  will  push  back  the  other 
team. 

The  second  rule  is  that  you  should  make  this  fight  center 
around  your  big  main  points  and  not  about  little  minor  ones. 
Remember  that  your  purpose  is,  not  to  contradict  something 
merely  because  the  other  man  has  said  it,  but  to  prove  your  main 
proposition.  Do  not  get  so  excited  about  some  little  side-issue 
that  you  forget  your  main  points  and  the  relation  of  these  side- 
issues  to  them.  Follow  your  main  proposition  as  an  athlete  follows 
the  ball,  and  if  you  are  advancing  that  main  proposition,  never 
mind  about  a  few  little  insignificant  questions  out  on  one  side. 
Frequently,  when  an  opponent  has  completely  crushed  you  on 
one  of  these  minor  points,  you  can  completely  crush  him  in  turn 
by  showing  that,  while  he  has  beaten  you  on  a  minor  point,  you 
have  beaten  him  on  a  main  one.  For  example,  suppose  that  you 
are  arguing  for  the  honor  system  in  your  school;  that  your  op- 
ponent has  proved  in  spite  of  you  that  it  worked  badly  at  X — ; 
and  that  you  have  proved  that  it  worked  well  in  every  other  school 
in  the  state.  You  would  be  exceedingly  foolish  if  you  spent  all 
the  rest  of  your  time  in  arguing  about  X — .  All  that  you  have 
to  do  to  win  is  to  point  out  to  the  audience  that  you  have  proved 
your  point  for  dozens  of  schools  while  your  opponent  has  been 
proving  his  for  one. 

Below  is  given  an  example  of  constructive  argument  and  refuta- 
tion combined. 


DEVELOPMENT  OF   THE  FULL  ARGUMENT          211 

THE    VALUE    OF     THE     PACIFIC     CRUISE     OF   THE 
UNITED  STATES   FLEET,    1908 x 

CAPTAIN   A.    T.    MAHAN 

The  projected  movement  of  an  American  fleet  of  sixteen  battle- 
ships, with  attendant  smaller  vessels,  from  the  Atlantic  to  the 
Pacific  coast  of  the  United  States,  is  an  event  not  only  important, 
both  from  the  professional  and  national  point  of  view,  but  striking 
to  the  imagination.  It  carries  in  itself  certain  elements  of  grandeur. 
It  is  therefore  not  surprising  that  it  should  have  attracted  partic- 
ular notice  from  the  press ;  but  the  effect  upon  the  imagination  of 
several  journals  has  been  such  as  to  approach  the  border  line  of 
insanity.  A  measure  designed  upon  its  face  to  reach  a  practical 
solution  of  one  of  the  most  urgent  naval  problems  that  can  con- 
front a  nation  having  two  seaboards,  extremely  remote  the  one 
from  the  other,  has  been  persistently  represented  as  a  menace  to 
a  friendly  power  —  Japan ;  and  so  effectively  has  this  campaign 
of  misrepresentation  been  carried  on,  so  successfully  has  an  obvious 
and  perfectly  sufficient  reason  for  this  cruise  been  ignored  in  favor 
of  one  less  probable,  and,  so  far  as  knowledge  went,  non-existent, 
that  certain  of  the  press  of  Japan,  we  are  told,  have  echoed  the  cry. 

Not  only  so,  but  European  journals,  notably  some  in  Great 
Britain,  among  them  certain  which  are  incessant  in  their  warnings 
against  Germany,  and  conscious  that  the  whole  distribution  of 
the  British  fleet  has  of  late  been  modified,  with  the  object  of  in- 
creasing the  battleship  force  quickly  available  for  the  North  Sea, 
where  their  only  enemy  is  Germany,  nevertheless  affect  to  dep- 
recate the  dispatch  of  a  United  States  fleet  from  its  Atlantic  to 
its  Pacific  coast,  where  it  will  be  four  thousand  miles  from  Japan, 
against  the  two  or  three  hundred  which  separate  England  and 
Germany.  A  new  British  naval  base  has  been  established  on 
the  North  Sea.  The  naval  manoeuvers  of  this  autumn  (1907), 
in  which  have  taken  part  twenty-six  battleships  and  fifteen  to 
twenty  armored  cruisers,  that  is,  over  forty  armored  vessels,  with 
other  cruisers  and  torpedo  boats  in  numbers,  have  been  in  the 

1  Reprinted  from  the  Scientific  American  by  the  kind  permission  of  the  publish- 
ers,  Munn  and  Co.,  New  York. 


212  ENGLISH   COMPOSITION 

North  Sea;  one  coast  only  of  which  is  British  as  our  Pacific  coast 
is  ours.  The  Naval  Annual  for  this  year,  a  publication  conserva- 
tive in  tone  as  well  as  high  in  authority,  discusses  the  strategy  of 
the  North  Sea  with  unhesitating  reference  to  Germany.  I  take  from 
it  the  statement  that  by  May,  1908,  86  per  cent  of  the  British 
battleship  strength  will  be  concentrated  in  or  near  home  waters. 
Yet,  in  the  face  of  all  this,  the  rulers  of  Great  Britain  and  Germany, 
at  this  very  moment  of  my  writing,  find  no  difficulty  in  exchanging 
peaceful  assurances,  the  sincerity  of  which  we  have  no  good  reason 
to  doubt.  Have  we  also  forgotten  that,  upon  the  Emperor  Wil- 
liam's famous  telegram  to  Kruger,  a  British  special  squadron  was 
ordered  into  commission,  ready  for  instant  movement  ?  Whether 
a  retort  or  a  menace,  even  so  overt  a  measure,  in  home  waters,  gave 
rise  to  no  further  known  diplomatic  action.  We  Americans  are 
attributing  to  other  people  a  thinness  of  skin,  suggestive  of  an 
over-sensitiveness  in  ourselves  which  it  was  hoped  we  had  out- 
grown. 

Let  it  be  said  at  once,  definitely  and  definitively,  that  there  is  in 
international  law,  or  in  international  comity,  absolutely  no  ground 
of  offence  to  any  state,  should  another  state,  neighbor  or  remote, 
see  fit  to  move  its  navy  about  its  own  coasts  in  such  manner  as  it 
pleases.  Whatever  Germany  may  think  of  the  new  distribution 
of  the  British  navy,  she  says  nothing,  but  will  silently  govern  her 
own  measures  accordingly.  The  statesmen  of  Japan,  who  under- 
stand perfectly  the  proprieties  of  international  relations,  know 
this  well,  and  doubtless  retain  their  composure ;  but  the  result  of 
the  action  of  certain  of  the  American  press  has  been  to  stir  up 
popular  feeling  in  both  countries,  by  the  imputation  to  the  United 
States  government  of  motives  and  purposes  which  cannot  be  known, 
and  which  prima  facie  are  less  probable  than  the  object  officially 
avowed.  Whether  this  endeavor  to  rouse  ill  blood  has  been  in- 
tentional or  not,  is  of  course  known  only  to  the  editors ;  but  grave 
ground  for  suspecting  even  so  unworthy  a  motive  as  to  injure  the 
national  administration  is  fairly  to  be  inferred  from  such  a  para- 
graph as  I  shall  here  quote,  from  a  New  York  journal  of  October  6. 
My  chief  object  in  quoting,  however,  is  not  to  impugn  motives, 
however  reasonable  such  construction,  but  to  emphasize  the 
essential  characteristic  of  the  coming  movement  of  our  fleet :  — 


DEVELOPMENT  OF   THE  FULL  ARGUMENT 


2I3 


"Suppose  that  soon  after  the  New  Orleans  riots,  when  rela- 
tions between  the  United  States  and  Italy  were  'strained,'  the 
American  fleet  had  been  sent  on  a  practice  cruise  to  the  Medi- 
terranean. 

"Suppose  that  soon  after  the  Venezuela  message,  Mr.  Cleveland 
had  ordered  the  whole  American  fighting  naval  strength  to  take 
a  practice  cruise  off  Nova  Scotia  or  Jamaica." 

Such  action,  in  either  supposed  case,  would  have  been  wantonly 
insolent  and  aggressive,  calculated  to  provoke  hostilities,  and  such 
as  no  statesman  would  take,  unless  he  had  already  determined  to 
force  war,  or  saw  it  looming  large  on  the  horizon;  as  when  the 
British  fleet  was  sent  to  Besika  Bay  in  1878.  The  insolence, 
aggression,  and  provocation,  however,  would  have  been  the  dem- 
onstration off  the  coast  of  the  nation  with  whom  diplomatic 
difficulty  existed.  Occurring  when  these  innuendoes  did,  in  the 
midst  of  the  virulent  campaign  of  imputation  of  warlike  purposes 
against  the  Administration,  the  inference  is  irresistible  that  there 
was  deliberate  intention  to  parallel  the  sending  of  our  fleet  from 
our  one  coast  to  our  other  to  a  measure  as  offensive  as  those  named. 
The  distinguishing  characteristic  of  the  movement  now  projected, 
from  the  international  point  of  view,  is  that  it  is  not  in  the  nature 
of  a  demonstration,  peaceful  or  hostile,  off  the  coast  of  any  other 
state,  much  less  off  that  of  one  with  whom  our  relations  are  asserted 
by  the  press  to  be  delicate.  Not  every  man  in  the  street,  however, 
could  detect  the  fallacy.  It  is  a  maxim  of  law  that  intention  can 
only  be  inferred  from  action.  So  wild  an  insinuation,  in  the 
columns  of  a  journal  distinguished  for  intelligence,  can,  so  far  as 
the  action  shows,  be  attributed  only  to  a  willingness  to  mislead, 
or  to  a  loss  of  head. 

In  pursuing  the  next  aspect  of  this  cruise  to  which  I  purpose  to 
devote  attention,  I  am  led  again  to  quote  the  same  journal:  — 

"We  are  asked  to  believe  that  this  expedition  to  the  Pacific  is 
a  mere  'practice  cruise.'  He  must  be  a  miracle  of  innocent 
credulity  who  believes  it.  What  observant  men  perceive  in  this 
dangerous  situation  is  a  cataclysm  trained  and  bridled  for  Theo- 
dore Roosevelt  to  bestride  and  run  amuck." 

The  last  sentence  is  not  necessary  to  my  purpose;  but  I  pre- 
serve it,  partly  for  that  gem  of  metaphor,  "a  cataclysm  trained 


214 


ENGLISH   COMPOSITION 


and  bridled,"  and  partly  for  the  directness  of  the  charge  against 
the  President  of  preparing  conditions  that  must  issue  in  war. 

For  the  rest,  if  to  believe  in  the  obvious  and  adequate  motive 
of  practice  for  the  fleet  is  to  be  a  "  miracle  of  innocent  credulity," 
such  I  must  admit  myself  to  be;  and  I  do  so  heartily.  I  am  not 
in  the  councils  of  either  the  government  or  the  Navy  Department. 
I  have  neither  talked  with  nor  heard  from  any  person  who  from 
official  position  could  communicate  to  me  any  knowledge  of  the 
facts.  My  own  information  has  been  confined  throughout  to  the 
newspapers.  Shortly  after  the  purpose  to  send  the  fleet  became 
known,  and  counter  agitation  to  be  made,  I  had  occasion  to  write 
to  a  British  naval  friend ;  and  I  said  to  him  then  that,  while  I  had 
no  clew  to  the  motives  of  the  Administration,  it  seemed  to  me  that 
a  perfectly  sufficient  reason  was  the  experience  to  be  gained  by 
the  fleet  in  making  a  long  voyage,  which  otherwise  might  have  to 
be  made  for  the  first  time  under  the  pressure  of  war,  and  the  dis- 
advantage of  not  having  experienced  at  least  once  the  huge  ad- 
ministrative difficulties  connected  with  so  distant  an  expedition 
by  a  large  body  of  vessels  dependent  upon  their  own  resources. 
By  "own  resources"  must  be  understood,  not  that  which  each 
vessel  carries  in  herself,  but  self-dependence  as  distinguished  from 
dependence  on  near  navy  yards  —  the  great  snare  of  peace  times. 
The  renewal  of  stores  and  coal  on  the  voyage  is  a  big  problem, 
whether  the  supply  vessels  accompany  the  fleet  or  are  directed  to 
join  from  point  to  point.  It  is  a  problem  of  combination,  and  of 
subsistence ;  a  distinctly  military  problem.  To  grapple  with  such 
a  question  is  as  really  practical  as  is  fleet  tactics  or  target  practice. 
To  this  opinion  I  now  adhere,  after  having  viewed  the  matter 
in  the  light  of  such  historical  and  professional  thought  and  train- 
ing as  I  can  bring  to  it.  Other  reasons  may  have  concurred ;  of 
this  I  know  nothing.  The  one  reason,  practice,  is  sufficient.  It 
is  not  only  adequate,  but  imperative.  The  experiment  —  for 
such  it  is  until  it  has  become  experience  —  should  have  been  made 
sooner  rather  than  be  now  postponed.  That  it  was  not  sooner 
attempted  has  been,  probably,  because  the  growth  of  the  navy 
has  only  now  reached  the  numbers,  sufficiently  homogeneous, 
to  make  the  movement  exhaustively  instructive. 

The  word  practice  covers  legitimately  many  features  of  naval 


DEVELOPMENT  OF   THE  FULL  ARGUMENT          215 

activity,  which  differ  markedly  and  even  radically  from  one  an- 
other, though  all  conducive  to  the  common  end  —  proficiency. 
I  may  perhaps  illustrate  advantageously  by  a  remark  I  have  had 
occasion  to  make  elsewhere,  upon  two  theories  concerning  the 
summer  practice  cruises  of  the  Naval  Academy.  There  were  — 
probably  still  are  —  those  who  advocated  spending  most  of  the 
allotted  time  in  quiet,  contracted  waters,  following  a  prearranged 
routine  of  practical  drills  of  various  descriptions,  which  would 
thus  be  as  little  as  possible  disturbed  by  weather  or  similar  impedi- 
ment. Others  favored  the  practice  vessels  putting  out  at  once  to 
sea  for  a  voyage  of  length,  amounting  often  to  five  or  six  thousand 
miles,  in  which  must  necessarily  be  experienced  many  kinds  of 
weather  and  other  incidents,  reproducing  the  real  life  of  the  sea, 
and  enforcing  such  practical  action  as  the  variable  ocean  con- 
tinually exacts.  It  is  evident  that  these  conceptions,  though 
opposite,  are  not  contrary  to  each  other,  but  complementary; 
and  a  moment's  thought  shows  that  under  another  phase  they 
reappear  in  every  fleet,  if  its  active  life  is  thoughtfully  ordered 
with  a  view  to  full  efficiency.  It  is  imperative  that  a  fleet,  for  a 
large  proportion  of  the  year,  seek  retired  waters  and  relatively 
equable  weather,  for  the  purposes  of  drill  with  the  guns;  from  the 
slow  graduated  instruction  of  the  gunners,  the  deliberate  firing 
at  a  stationary  target,  and  from  a  ship  either  at  rest  or  slowly  mov- 
ing, up  through  successive  accretions  of  speed  of  ship,  and  of  dis- 
charges, until  the  extreme  test  is  reached  of  fast  steaming,  and 
firing  with  the  utmost  quickness  with  which  the  guns  can  be  handled. 
In  like  manner  the  maneuvering  of  a  body  of  several  ships  in  rapid 
movement,  changing  from  one  formation  to  another,  for  the  ulti- 
mate purposes  of  battle,  must  progress  gradually,  in  order  that  com- 
manding officers  and  their  understudies  may  gain,  not  only  ability, 
but  confidence,  based  upon  habit ;  upon  knowledge  of  what  their 
own  ships  can  do,  and  what  they  may  expect  from  the  other  vessels 
about  them.  Ships  in  battle  order  must  keep  at  distances  which, 
relatively  to  the  speed  maintained,  are  short;  dangerously  short, 
except  where  compensated  by  the  sureness  of  handling  based  on 
long  practice.  It  is  clear  also  that  alterations  in  the  personnel 
of  a  fleet,  which  are  of  frequent  occurrence,  make  constant  tactical 
drills  additionally  necessary. 


2i6  ENGLISH   COMPOSITION 

But  when  all  this  —  and  more  not  here  specified  —  has  been 
accomplished,  whether  at  the  Naval  Academy  or  for  the  fleet,  what 
has  been  done  but  lay  the  necessary  foundation  upon  which  to 
rear  the  superstructure  of  the  real  life  of  the  profession?  There 
remains  still  to  fulfill  the  object  — very  different  from  mere  practice, 
though  dependent  upon  it  —  which  alone  justifies  the  existence 
of  a  navy.  The  pupil  of  the  Naval  Academy  passes  naturally  and 
imperceptibly  into  the  routine  of  life  of  the  service  by  the  simple 
incident  of  being  ordered  to  a  sea-going  ship ;  the  single  ship,  the 
cruiser,  gains  her  sufficient  experience  by  the  mere  fact  of  staying 
at  sea ;  but  a  fleet  tied  to  its  home  ports,  or  to  the  drill  ground,  does 
not  undergo,  and  therefore  does  not  possess,  the  fullness  of  fleet 
life.  Not  only  are  the  interruptions  numerous  and  injurious; 
not  only  does  the  easily  reached  navy  yard  sap  the  habit  of  self- 
reliance;  but  out  in  the  deep,  dependent  upon  itself  alone  and 
for  a  long  period,  there  await  a  fleet  on  a  distant  voyage  problems 
so  different  in  degree  from  those  of  a  vessel  alone  as  practically 
to  be  different  in  kind.  Multiply  any  kind  of  difficulty  by  sixteen, 
and  you  have  passed  from  one  order  of  administration  to  another. 

The  movement  of  the  United  States  battle  fleet  from  the  Atlantic 
to  the  Pacific  coast  is  in  the  highest  sense  practical,  because  it  is 
precisely  the  kind  of  movement  which  the  fleet  of  any  nation  may, 
and  usually  will,  be  required  to  make  in  war.  It  is  further 
practical,  because  the  United  States  has  a  Pacific  as  well  as  an 
Atlantic  coast,  and  has  not  a  navy  large  enough  to  be  divided  safely 
between  them.  The  question  is  at  least  debatable,  whether  for 
the  near  future  the  Pacific  is  not  the  greater  center  of  world  interest ; 
as  it  certainly,  with  regard  to  our  own  military  necessities,  is  one 
of  greater  exposure  than  the  Atlantic.  Like  France,  with  her 
Mediterranean  and  Atlantic  shores,  the  United  States  is  in  the 
painful  military  dilemma  of  being  liable  to  attack  on  one  side  while 
the  fleet  is  on  the  other ;  but  our  distance  to  be  covered  is  so  much 
greater  than  that  of  France,  that  the  position  is  vastly  more  em- 
barrassing. A  fleet  of  battleships  leaving  Toulon,  full  coaled  and 
victualed,  may  reach  Brest  or  Cherbourg  without  renewing  the 
fuel  and  stores  in  its  holds ;  but  a  fleet  leaving  New  York  or  Norfolk 
for  San  Francisco  has  upon  its  hands  a  most  serious  administrative 
problem,  and  one  which  no  accuracy  of  gun-fire,  no  skill  in  tactics, 


DEVELOPMENT  OF   THE  FULL  ARGUMENT          217 

can  meet.  It  is  in  fact  the  problem  of  Rozhestvensky,  to  use  an 
illustration  particularly  apt,  because  recent.  Can  our  navy  in 
such  case  expect  from  the  weak  states  of  South  America  the  facility 
for  recoaling,  etc.,  which  was  liberally  extended  to  the  Russian 
admiral,  to  the  somewhat  amazement  of  the  naval  profession,  and 
to  the  just  indignation  of  Japan? 

It  is  an  old  saying  that  an  army,  like  a  snake,  moves  on  its  belly. 
This  is  little  less  true  of  a  navy.  In  the  foremost  naval  man  of 
modern  times,  in  Nelson,  we,  according  to  our  several  preposses- 
sions, see  the  great  strategist,  or  the  great  tactician,  or  the  great 
fighting  man;  but  the  careful  student  of  his  letters  realizes  that, 
underlying  all,  is  the  great  administrator,  who  never  lost  sight  or 
forethought  for  the  belly  on  which  his  fleet  moved.  The  unre- 
mitting solicitude  for  the  food  essential  to  the  health  of  his  crews; 
the  perpetual  alertness  to  seize  opportunity,  indicated  by  such 
casual  note,  at  sea:  "Finished  discharging  storeship  No. — ;" 
the  slipping  into  Tetuan  to  fill  with  water,  because  little  progress 
toward  Gibraltar  could  be  made  against  the  current  and  temporary 
head  wind ;  the  strong  self-control,  holding  down  his  constitutional 
impetuosity  to  move,  till  sure  that  all  has  been  done  to  make  move- 
ment far  reaching,  as  well  as  accurate  in  direction ;  the  whole 
culminating  at  the  end  of  his  life  in  a  wide  sweeping  movement 
across  the  Atlantic,  back  to  Gibraltar,  and -thence  to  Brest,  a  period 
of  three  months  —  about  equivalent  to  that  required  for  our  pro- 
jected transfer  —  during  which  he  was  never  embarrassed  about 
stores  because  always  forehanded;  that  is  the  way  —  speed,  not 
haste  —  in  which  wars  are  won.  It  was,  and  was  recognized  at 
the  time  to  be,  a  magnificent  instance  of  the  mobility  which  is  the 
great  characteristic  of  navies  as  fighting  bodies ;  not  the  mobility 
which  consists  in  getting  an  extra  half-knot  on  a  speed  trial  with 
picked  coal  and  firemen,  but  that  which  loses  no  time  because  it 
never  misses  opportunity.  At  the  end,  when  he  came  off  Brest, 
out  of  the  dozen  ships  with  him,  all  but  two  were  turned  over  to  the 
admiral  there  commanding,  ready  for  any  call ;  to  blockade  or  to 
fight.  Of  the  two,  one,  worn  out  structurally,  he  had  retained 
from  the  first  chiefly  because  of  her  value  as  a  fighting  unit,  due 
to  an  exceptional  captain;  the  other,  his  own  flagship,  had  been 
over  two  years  from  a  home  port,  yet  within  a  month  of  arrival 


2Ig  ENGLISH   COMPOSITION 

sailed  again  for  his  last  battle.  Compared  to  these  its  antecedents, 
Trafalgar  is  relatively  a  small  matter. 

The  example  is  for  all  time.  Incidental  conditions  have  changed 
since  then,  but  the  essential  problem  remains.  Steamers  may  not 
find  in  a  calm,  or  in  an  unprofitable  head  wind,  the  propitious 
moment  for  clearing  a  storeship,  or  running  into  a  near  port  to  fill 
with  water;  but  the  commander-in-chief  may  find  imposed  upon 
him  the  consideration:  Where  should  we  fill  with  coal,  and  to  what 
extent  beyond  the  bunker  capacity,  in  order  to  make  the  successive 
coalings,  and  the  necessary  stretches  from  point  to  point,  most 
easy  and  most  rapid  ?  What  distribution  of  these  operations  will 
make  the  total  voyage  shortest  and  surest  ?  What  anchorages  may 
be  available  outside  neutral  limits,  should  neutral  states  consider 
coal  renewal  and  other  refreshment  an  operation  of  war  not  to  be 
permitted  within  their  jurisdiction?  \Vhat  choice  is  there  among 
these  anchorages,  for  facility  due  to  weather?  If  driven  to  coal 
at  sea,  where  will  conditions  be  most  propitious  ?  For  concrete 
instances:  How  much  of  the  wide  and  shoal  estuary  of  the  La 
Plata  is  within  neutral  jurisdiction?  Is  the  well-known  quietness 
of  the  Pacific  between  Valparaiso  and  the  equator  such  that  colliers 
can  lie  alongside  while  the  ships  hold  their  course  ?  If  so,  at  what 
speed  can  they  move?  Then  the  mere  operation  of  transferring 
the  coal,  or  other  stores,-  under  any  of  these  circumstances  is  done 
more  rapidly  the  second  time  than  the  first;  and  the  third  than  the 
second.  At  what  points  of  the  voyage  should  additional  colliers 
join,  having  reference,  not  only  to  the  considerations  above  men- 
tioned but  also  to  the  ports  whence  they  sail,  that  the  utmost  of 
their  cargo  may  go  into  the  fleet  and  the  least  be  expended  for  their 
own  steaming?  It  is  always  well  to  consider  the  worst  difficulties 
that  may  be  met.  From  the  north  tropic  on  the  one  side  to  the 
same  latitude  on  the  other,  the  whole  voyage  of  an  American  fleet 
will  be  in  foreign  waters,  except  when  on  the  ocean  common. 
Upon  what  hospitality  can  it  count  in  war? 

I  hold  it  to  be  impossible  that  a  fleet  under  a  competent  com- 
mander-in-chief and  competent  captains  —  not  to  mention  the 
admirable  junior  official  staff  of  our  navy,  of  highly  trained  officers 
in  the  prime  of  life  —  can  make  the  proposed  voyage  once,  even 
with  the  advantages  of  peace,  without  being  better  fitted  to  repeat 


DEVELOPMENT  OF   THE  FULL   ARGUMENT 


2I9 


the  operation  in  war.  No  amount  of  careful  pre- arrangement 
in  an  office  takes  the  place  of  doing  the  thing  itself.  It  is  surely 
a  safe  generalization,  that  no  complicated  scheme  of  action,  no  in- 
vention, was  ever  yet  started  without  giving  rise  to  difficulties 
which  anxious  care  had  failed  to  foresee.  If  challenged  to  point 
out  the  most  useful  lesson  the  fleet  may  gain,  it  may  be  not  unsafe 
to  say :  its  surprises,  the  unexpected.  If  we  can  trust  press  reports, 
surprise  has  already  begun  in  the  home  water.  The  fleet  apparently 
has  not  been  able  to  get  ready  as  soon  as  contemplated.  If  so, 
it  will  be  no  small  gain  to  the  government  to  know  the  several 
hitches;  each  small,  but  cumulative. 

In  my  estimation,  therefore,  the  matter  stands  thus:  In  the 
opinion  of  Sir  Charles  Dilke  —  than  whom  I  know  no  sounder 
authority,  because  while  non-professional  he  has  been  for  a  genera- 
tion a  most  accurate  observer  and  appreciative  student  of  military 
and  naval  matters  —  the  United  States  navy  now  stands  second 
in  power  only  to  that  of  Great  Britain ;  but  it  is  not  strong  enough 
to  be  divided  between  the  Atlantic  and  Pacific  coasts.  Both  are 
part  of  a  common  country;  both  therefore  equally  entitled  to 
defence.  It  follows  inevitably  that  the  fleet  should  be  always 
ready,  not  only  in  formulated  plan,  but  by  acquired  experience, 
to  proceed  with  the  utmost  rapidity  —  according  to  the  definition 
of  mobility  before  suggested  —  from  one  coast  to  the  other,  as 
needed.  That  facility  obtained,  both  coasts  are  defended  in  a 
military  sense.  By  this  I  do  not  mean  that  an  enemy  may  not 
do  some  flying  injury  —  serious  injury  —  but  that  no  large  opera- 
tion against  the  coasts  of  the  United  States  can  prosper  unless  the 
enemy  command  the  sea ;  and  that  he  cannot  do,  to  any  effect,  if 
within  three  months  a  superior  United  States  force  can  appear. 
Rozhestvensky  took  longer ;  but  could  he  have  smashed  Togo,  as 
Togo  did  him,  what  would  have  been  the  situation  of  Japan,  for 
all  the  successes  of  the  preceding  fourteen  months?  Evidently, 
however,  the  shorter  the  transit  from  the  Pacific  to  the  Atlantic, 
the  greater  will  be  the  power  of  the  fleet  for  good ;  just  as  it  would 
have  been  better  if  Rozhestvensky  —  assuming  his  success  —  had 
come  before  Port  Arthur  fell,  or  better  still  before  its  fleet  was 
destroyed.  Such  mobility  can  be  acquired  only  by  a  familiarity 
with  the  ground,  and  with  the  methods  to  be  followed,  such  as 


220  ENGLISH   COMPOSITION 

Nelson  by  personal  experience  had  of  the  Mediterranean  and  of 
the  West  Indies;  of  the  facilities  they  offered,  and  the  obstacles 
they  presented.  Such  knowledge  is  experimental,  gained  only 
by  practice.  It  is  demonstrable,  therefore,  that  the  proposed 
voyage  is  in  the  highest  degree  practical;  not  only  advisable,  but 
imperative.  Nor  should  it  be  a  single  spasm  of  action,  but  a  re- 
current procedure ;  for  admirals  and  captains,  go  and  come,  and 
their  individual  experience  with  them.  Why  not  annual?  The 
Pacific  is  as  good  a  drill  ground  as  the  Atlantic. 


PART  III 

DESCRIPTION 

CHAPTER  X 

DESCRIPTION 

DESCRIPTION,  as  the  word  is  generally  used,  means  any  repre- 
sentation of  objects,  no  matter  whether  by  line,  color,  or  words. 
In  composition,  description  is  easily  divided  into  two  main  types,  V 
according  to  the  purpose  for  which  the  description  is  written. 
Most  descriptions  can  without  difficulty  be  assigned  to  one  of  these 
two  divisions. 

Thus,  for  example,  a  guidebook  might  describe  the  view  from 
Westminster  Bridge  in  London,  in  the  following  way:  — 

From  the  bridge  an  admirable  view  is  obtained  of  the  Houses  of 
Parliament,  Westminster  Abbey,  Lambeth  Palace,  the  extensive  Hospital 
of  Saint  Thomas,  and  other  landmarks,  together  with  a  considerable 
part  of  the  city  and  the  river.  Below  the  bridge,  which  is  crossed  by 
electric  trams,  is  the  beginning  of  the  Victoria  Embankment,  down 
which  the  trams  run  to  Blackfriars  Bridge.  Above,  on  the  right  bank, 
is  the  Albert  Embankment,  leading  past  Lambeth  Palace. 

The  poet  Wordsworth  described  the  view  from  the  bridge  in  1802, 
in  a  sonnet  which  was  a  masterpiece  of  a  different  sort  of  description. 

Earth  has  not  anything  to  show  more  fair: 

Dull  would  he  be  of  soul  who  could  pass  by 

A  sight  so  touchmg  in  its  majesty: 

This  City  now  doth,  like  a  garment,  wear 

The  beauty  of  the  morning;   silent,  bare, 

Ships,  towers,  domes,  theatres,  and  temples  lie 

Open  unto  the  fields  and  to  the  sky; 

All  bright  and  glittering  in  the  smokeless  air. 

Never  did  sun  more  beautifully  steep 


222  ENGLISH   COMPOSITION 

In  his  first  splendor,  valley,  rock,  or  hill; 
Ne'er  saw  I,  never  felt,  a  calm  so  deep ! 
The  river  glideth  at  his  own  sweet  will : 
Dear  God!   the  very  houses  seem  asleep; 
And  all  that  mighty  heart  is  lying  still ! 

An  even  greater  contrast  is  afforded  by  a  comparison  of  a  de- 
scription of  Rome  copied  from  a  cyclopedia,  with  some  descriptive 
stanzas  on  the  same  city  by  Byron. 

Rome,  the  capital  and  center  of  the  greatest  state  of  the  ancient  world, 
the  center  of  the  Roman  Catholic  Church,  and  the  capital  of  the  present 
kingdom  of  Italy.  This,  the  most  famous  of  all  cities,  is  situated  on 
both  banks  of  the  Tiber,  fifteen  miles  from  the  Mediterranean,  in  lat. 
41'  54"  N.,  long.  12'  29"  E.  The  city  proper  is  on  the  left  bank,  on 
the  original  seven  hills  (Capitoline,  Palatine,  Aventine,  Caelian,  Vimi- 
nal,  Esquiline,  and  Quirinal)  and  the  connecting  valleys  and  plains  near 
the  river.  Etc. 

O  Rome !   my  country !   city  of  the  soul ! 
The  orphans  of  the  heart  must  turn  to  thee, 
Lone  mother  of  dead  empires !  and  control 
In  their  shut  breasts  their  petty  misery. 
What  are  our  woes  and  sufferance?     Come  and  see 
The  cypress,  hear  the  owl,  and  plod  your  way 
O'er  steps  of  broken  thrones  and  temples,  —  Ye ! 
Whose  agonies  are  as  evils  of  a  day  — 
A  world  is  at  our  feet  as  fragile  as  our  clay. 

The  Niobe  of  nations !  there  she  stands 
Childless  and  crown  less  in  her  voiceless  woe; 
An  empty  urn  within  her  withered  hands, 
Whose  holy  dust  was  scatter' d  long  ago; 
The  Scipio's  tomb  contains  no  ashes  now; 
The  very  sepulchres  lie  tenantless 
Of  their  heroic  dwellers:   dost\hou  flow, 
Old  Tiber!  through  a  marble  wilderness? 
Rise,  with  thy  yellow  waves,  and  mantle  her  distress. 

The  first  pair  of  examples  described  a  definite  picture,  a  view, 
though  with  widely  different  aims.  The  descriptions  of  Rome, 


DESCRIPTION  M$ 

however,  in  neither  case  give  a  definite  picture,  although  you  feel 
that  the  poet  is  standing  somewhere,  and  gazing  at  the  city.  Yet 
you  recognize  at  once  that  the  first  and  third  selections  belong  to 
one  class  of  description,  the  second  and  fourth  to  another.  You 
see  that  guidebook  and  cyclopedia  are  explanatory  or  instructive 
in  aim,  while  the  poems  are  imaginative,  suggestive,  pictorial. 
The  first  of  these  is  so  closely  allied  to  the  form  of  discourse  already 
studied  as  Exposition  that  we  may  well  call  it  expository  descrip- 
tion and  apply  to  it  most  of  what  was  said  under  that  title.  The 
second  of  these  we  may  call  imaginative  description,  and  in  this 
chapter  must  devote  to  it  the  greater  part  of  our  attention. 

Often  these  two  kinds  of  description  are  combined,  when  the 
aim  of  the  writer  is  both  to  give  information  and  to  stimulate  the 
imagination.  Thus  the  advertiser  waxes  enthusiastic  over  his 
honey :  — 

There  are  times  in  the  life  of  every  adult  who  has  once  experi- 
enced, even  in  childhood's  earliest  memory,  the  delightful  taste 
of  pure  honey,  when  the  longing  of  the  palate  for  this  delicious 
nectar  of  the  flowers  becomes  almost  irresistible.  .  .  .  There  is  no 
flavor  of  nature  so  delicate,  so  subtle,  so  universally  loved. 

From  that  wonder-garden  of  the  New  World,  California,  comes 
a  honey  which  the  bees  procure  from  hills  and  valleys  covered 
with  rich  and  luxuriant  beds  of  sage.  Well  may  the  poet  sing  that 
into  its  every  drop  is  poured  the  semitropical  bounty  of  the  sweet 
Pacific  Sun  and  the  silver-white  hue  of  the  Western  Stars. 

This  is  unquestionably  the  finest  honey  in  the  world  and  the 
only  one  which  satisfies  the  demands  of  our  Premier  Label.  It 
comes  to  us  in  all  its  limpid  purity,  just  as  it  is  taken  from  the  hive 
of  the  bee,  and  after  it  is  filtered  we  distribute  it  to  the  fortunate 
few  in  cylinder  shaped  bottles  under  our  "  Premier  "  label.  For 
the  table  or  for  medicinal  use  this  product  provides  a  perfect  solu- 
tion to  the  problem  which  confronts  all  who  seek  quality  and 
purity  combined. 

Here  we  drop  with  a  thud  from  what  is  imaginative  to  what  is 
expository,  and  the  awkwardness  of  the  combination  is  apparent. 
As  a  matter  of  fact,  however,  few  descriptions  are  purely  imagina- 


224 


ENGLISH   COMPOSITION 


tive  or  purely  expository,  since  you  cannot  understand  objects 
without  seeing,  nor  really  see  without  comprehending.  To  an 
English-speaking  citizen  of  Timbuctoo,  Wordsworth's  description 
of  London  could  be  of  little  interest;  only  those  who  have  seen 
London,  or  some  other  civilized  city,  can  supply  the  basis  for  the 
vivid  appeal  of  the  poem.  Still  more  to  one  unacquainted  with 
the  history  of  Rome,  Byron's  lines  are  without  meaning.  For  such 
a  one,  a  Baedeker  is  first  necessary.  You  must  not  be  afraid,  there- 
fore, of  putting  into  your  imaginative  description  any  details 
which  help  us  to  understand  the  picture,  so  long  as  these  are  really 
needed.  On  the  other  hand,  a  touch  of  the  imaginative  makes 
many  an  exposition  readable.  It  is  the  prevailing  purpose,  not 
any  single  use  of  details,  which  divides  description  into  our  two 
classes.  With  this  in  mind,  we  may  glance  for  a  moment  more 
at  expository  description. 
The  following  examples  are  full  of  imaginative  touches:  — 

The  evening  proceedings  and  manceuvers  of  the  rooks  are 
curious  and  amusing  in  the  autumn.  Just  before  dusk  they 
return  in  long  strings  from  the  foraging  of  the  day,  and  rendezvous 
by  thousands  over  Selborne  Down,  where  they  wheel  round  in  the 
air  and  sport  and  dive  in  a  playful  manner,  all  the  while  exerting 
their  voices,  and  making  a  loud  cawing,  which,  being  blended 
and  softened  by  the  distance  that  we  at  the  village  are  below  them, 
becomes  a  confused  noise  or  chiding ;  or  rather  a  pleasing  murmur, 
very  engaging  to  the  imagination,  and  not  unlike  the  cry  of  a  pack 
of  hounds  in  hollow  echoing  woods,  or  the  rushing  of  the  wind  in 
tall  trees,  or  the  tumbling  of  the  tide  upon  a  pebbly  shore.  When 
this  ceremony  is  over,  with  the  last  gleam  of  day,  they  retire  for 
the  night  to  the  deep  beechen  woods  of  Tisted  and  Ropley. 

.  .  .  Thus  kites  and  buzzards  sail  round  in  circles  with  wings 
expanded  and  motionless;  and  it  is  from  their  gliding  manner  that 
the  former  are  still  called  in  the  north  of  England  gleads,  from  the 
Saxon  verb  glidan,rto  glide.  The  kestrel,  or  windhover,  has  a 
peculiar  mode  of  hanging  in  the  air  in  one  place,  his  wings  all  the 
while  being  briskly  agitated.  Henharriers  fly  low  over  heaths  or 
fields  of  corn,  and  beat  the  ground  regularly  like  a  pointer  or  setting- 


DESCRIPTION  225 

dog.  Owls  move  in  a  buoyant  manner,  as  if  lighter  than  the  air; 
they  seem  to  want  ballast.  There  is  a  peculiarity  belonging  to 
ravens  that  must  draw  the  attention  even  of  the  most  incurious  — 
they  spend  all  their  leisure  time  in  striking  and  cuffing  each  other 
on  the  wing  in  a  kind  of  playful  skirmish ;  and,  when  they  move 
from  one  place  to  another,  frequently  turn  on  their  backs  with 
a  loud  croak,  and  seem  to  be  falling  to  the  ground.  When  this 
odd  gesture  betides  them,  they  are  scratching  themselves  with 
one  foot,  and  thus  lose  the  center  of  gravity.  Rooks  sometimes 
dive  and  tumble  in  a  frolicsome  manner ;  crows  and  daws  swagger 
in  their  walk ;  woodpeckers  fly  volatu  undoso,  opening  and  closing 
their  wings  at  every  stroke,  and  so  are  always  rising  or  falling  in 
curves.  .  .  .  Magpies  and  jays  flutter  with  powerless  wings, 
and  make  no  dispatch;  herons  seem  incumbered  with  too  much 
sail  for  their  light  bodies,  but  these  vast  hollow  wings  are  necessary 
in  carrying  burdens,  such  as  large  fishes  and  the  like;  pigeons, 
and  particularly  the  sort  called  smiters,  have  a  way  of  clashing 
their  wings  the  one  against  the  other  over  their  backs  with  a  loud 
snap;  another  variety,  called  tumblers,  turn  themselves  over  in 
the  air.  Some  birds  have  movements  peculiar  to  the  season  of 
love:  thus  ringdoves,  though  strong  and  rapid  at  other  times, 
yet  in  the  spring  hang  about  on  the  wing  in  a  toying  and  playful 
manner;  thus  the  cock-snipe,  while  breeding,  forgetting  his  former 
flight,  fans  the  air  like  the  windhover;  and  the  greenfinch,  in  par- 
ticular, exhibits  such  languishing  and  faltering  gestures  as  to  appear 
like  a  wounded  and  dying  bird;  the  king-fisher  darts  along  like 
an  arrow;  fern-owls,  or  goat-suckers,  glance  in  the  dusk  over  the 
tops  of  trees  like  a  meteor ;  starlings  as  it  were  swim  along,  while 
missel-thrushes  use  a  wild  and  desultory  flight;  swallows  sweep 
over  the  surface  of  the  ground  and  water,  and  distinguish  them- 
selves by  rapid  turns  and  quick  evolutions;  swifts  dash  round  in 
circles;  and  the  bank-martin  moves  with  frequent  vacillations 
like  a  butterfly.  Most  of  the  small  birds  fly  by  jerks,  rising  and 
falling  as  they  advance.  Most  small  birds  hop ;  but  wagtails  and 
larks  walk,  moving  their  legs  alternately.  Skylarks  rise  and  fall 
perpendicularly  as  they  sing;  woodlarks  hang  poised  in  the  air;  and 
tit-larks  rise  and  fall  in  large  curves,  singing  in  their  descent.  .  .  . 
—  GILBERT  WHITE:  Natural  History  of  Selborne,  Letters  lix,  xliii. 
Q 


226  ENGLISH   COMPOSITION 

Few  pieces  of  expository  description,  however,  possess  such 
picturesque  elements  as  the  flight  of  birds.  The  most  that  we 
can  strive  for,  in  the  majority  of  cases,  is  an  accurate  and  orderly 
setting  down  of  sufficient  details  to  present  the  object  clearly  before 
the  reader.  In  specific  description  of  this  kind,  technical  words 
cannot  be  avoided ;  but  the  writer  will  confine  them  to  the  least 
possible  number  consistent  with  clearness. 

Baedeker,  Great  Britain,  thus  describes  the  Choir  of  Salisbury 
Cathedral:  — 

The  Choir  (adm.  6d.)  is  separated  from  the  nave  by  a  modern 
metal  screen  by  Skidmore.  The  vaulting  has  been  coloured  in 
accordance  with  the  index  afforded  by  a  few  traces  of  the  original 
decorations.  The  stalls  are  a  combination  of  work  of  various 
dates,  including  perhaps  some  of  the  original  work ;  the  pulpit  and 
reredos  are  modern.  On  the  N.  side  of  the  choir  is  the  fine  Per- 
pendicular Chantry  of  Bishop  Audley  (1520),  and  on  the  S.  the 
Hungerford  Chantry  (removed  from  the  N.  side  of  the  nave), 
a  good  example  of  i5th  century  iron-work  (1430).  The  E.  ex- 
tremity of  the  cathedral  is  occupied  by  the  Lady-Chapel,  with 
five  lancets  filled  with  modern  stained  glass.  Adjacent,  at  the 
E.  end  of  the  N.  choir-aisle,  is  the  monument  of  Sir  Thomas 
Gorges  (d.  1610)  and  his  wife  (d.  1635),  the  builders  of  Longfort 
Castle.  Opposite,  at  the  E.  end  of  the  S.  choir-aisle,  is  a  monu- 
ment to  the  Earl  of  Hertford  (d.  1621)  and  his  wife.  Between  this 
and  the  Lady-Chapel  is  a  slab  commemorating  St.  Osmund 
(d.  1099),  whose  shrine  stood  in  the  Lady-Chapel.  The  N.E.  Tran- 
sept contains  the  interesting  and  curious  brass  of  Bishop  Wyville 
(d.  1375).  From  the  S.E.  Transept,  containing  the  Chantry  of 
Bishop  Bridport  (d.  1262),  a  door  leads  to  the  Vestry  and  Muni- 
ment Room. 

As  may  be  gathered  from  this  extract,  the  chief  difficulty  in  the 
writing  of  expository  description  is  the  mastering  of  the  technical 
vocabulary  which  accompanies  every  art  and  science.  Practice 
in  this  form  of  composition  had  best  be  limited  therefore  to  objects 
which  have  been  long  familiar  to  the  writer.  And  even  in  such 
a  simple  object  as  a  door,  he  will  find  that  the  details  will  involve 
words  beyond  his  experience,  unless  he  has  at  some  time  practiced 


DESCRIPTION  227 

carpentry.  With  these  few  notes  on  expository  description,  we 
leave  the  subject;  anything  else  would  belong  to  the  chapter  on 
Exposition,  to  which  you  are  referred. 

In  imaginative  description,  on  the  other  hand,  you  are  first  to 
keep  in  mind  its  close  relation  to  the  art  of  painting.  Your  diffi- 
culties will  be  those  which  confront  the  painter.  A  description, 
as  one  critic  defines  it,  is  a  painting  which  renders  material  things 
visible,  so  that  a  painter  might  copy  the  scene  from  the  words. 
The  comparison  between  painting  and  description  is  indeed 
inevitable.  If  expository  description  is  an  architect's  drawing, 
imaginative  description  is  a  portrait  or  a  landscape.  It  is  the  touch 
of  the  imagination  which  turns  a  fashion-plate  into  a  portrait, 
whether  in  words  or  in  oils. 

It  is  obvious,  to  begin  with,  that  in  such  matters  as  color,  contour, 
and  grace  the  painter  has  a  great  advantage  over  his  brother- 
artist  in  words.  There  are  not  words  enough  to  describe  the 
infinite  variety  of  these  things.  On  the  other  hand,  when  the 
painter  comes  to  depict  a  landscape,  what  can  he  tell  us  of  the 
sweet  smell  of  the  meadow,  the  softness  of  the  breeze,  the  waving 
of  the  wheat,  the  flight  of  birds,  the  movements  of  folks,  the  song 
of  the  brook,  the  piping  of  the  cricket,  and  a  hundred  other  appeals 
that  make  up  the  true  picture  of  a  summer  day  ?  All  these  images 
the  writer  can  call  back  to  the  mind  of  any  one  who  has  once  ex- 
perienced them ;  he  may  even,  by  comparison  and  metaphor,  teach 
them  to  one  who  has  never  known  them.  Words,  then,  can  paint 
effectively,  though  their  range  is  different  from  that  of  the  artist's 
material.  Note  the  variety  of  sensation,  and  the  graphic  quality, 
in  the  following  bit  from  Kipling :  — 

Harvey  soon  discovered  that  the  We're  Here,  with  her  riding- 
sail,  strolling  from  berth  to  berth,  and  the  We're  Here  headed 
west  by  south  under  home  canvas,  were  two  very  different  boats. 
There  was  a  bite  and  kick  to  the  wheel  even  in  '  boy's '  weather ;  he 
could  feel  the  dead  weight  in  the  hold  flung  forward  mightily 
across  the  surges,  and  the  streaming  line  of  bubbles  overside  made 
his  eyes  dizzy.  .  .  . 

The  low-sided  schooner  was  naturally  on  most  intimate  terms 
with  her  surroundings.  They  saw  little  of  the  horizon  save  when 


228  ENGLISH    COMPOSITION 

she  topped  a  swell;  and  usually  she  was  elbowing,  fidgeting,  and 
coaxing  her  stedfast  way,  through  grey-blue  or  black  hollows  laced 
across  and  across  with  streaks  of  shivering  foam ;  or  rubbing  herself 
caressingly  along  the  flank  of  some  bigger  water-hill.  .  .  .  Harvey 
began  to  comprehend  and  enjoy  the  dry  chorus  of  wave-tops  turn- 
ing over  with  a  sound  of  incessant  tearing ;  the  hurry  of  the  winds 
working  across  open  spaces  and  herding  the  purple-blue  cloud- 
shadows;  the  splendid  upheaval  of  the  red  sunrise;  the  folding 
and  packing  away  of  the  morning  mists,  wall  after  wall  withdrawn 
across  the  white  floors ;  the  salty  glare  and  blaze  of  noon ;  the  kiss 
of  rain  falling  over  thousands  of  dead,  flat  square  miles ;  the  chilly 
blackening  of  everything  at  the  day's  end ;  and  the  million  wrinkles 
of  the  sea  under  moonlight,  when  the  jib-boom  solemnly  poked 
at  the  low  stars,  and  Harvey  went  down  to  get  a  doughnut  from 
the  cook. 

—  KIPLING  :    Captains  Courageous. 

Here  are  color,  motion,  form,  taste,  touch,  sound,  all  at  work  in 
a  dozen  ways  painting  a  picture  with  a  variety  of  appeal  that  no 
painter  of  marines  could  equal. 

A  second  way  in  which  description  may  be  compared  to  painting 
is  in  the  character  of  the  artist  himself.  The  essential  equipment 
for  the  artist  is,  of  course,  the  same  in  both  arts:  frank  and  ap- 
preciative interest  in  nature,  and  keen  and  truthful  observation. 
These  qualities  may  be  summed  up  in  one  phrase,  —  a  willing- 
ness to  see  what  is  there.  But  the  comparison  does  not  stop  here. 

A  third  point  of  contact  is  the  field  in  which  work  can  be  done. 
Your  choice,  like  the  painter's,  will  be  limited,  first  by  the  extent 
of  your  own  experience  —  for  you  cannot  describe  what  you  have 
not  seen,  and  the  imagination  is  only  an  active  memory  —  and 
secondly  by  what  will  interest  your  reader.  Ordinarily,  descrip- 
tion is  divided  into  the  landscape  and  the  portrait,  but  its  range  is 
far  wider  than  this.  Character,  mode  of  life,  sound,  a  mood,  and 
an  infinite  combination  of  these  and  other  appeals  to  the  imag- 
ination are  equally  suitable  for  descriptive  writing.  As  a  college 
student,  you  might  describe  not  merely  the  view  from  your  window 
at  a  given  moment,  or  the  most  interesting  of  your  classmates, 
but  your  own  moods  during  one  day,  the  most  popular  tune  of  the 


DESCRIPTION  229 

moment,  the  speech  you  remember  best,  the  kind  of  voice  you 
like  to  hear,  the  differences  in  accent  among  your  classmates,  the 
prevailing  types  at  college,  how  different  men  shake  hands,  — 
these  are  all  good  themes  for  descriptive  composition.  But 
though  your  range  of  subject  be  wider  than  the  painter's,  your 
aim  is  the  same,  to  present  something  that  is  real,  vivid,  and 
significant,  something  that  will  appeal  to  the  man  you  wish  to 
interest. 

A  fourth  comparison  of  description  to  painting  is  still  more  im- 
portant; the  writer  of  description,  like  the  painter,  must  have  a 
point  of  view.  He  must  see  things  in  relation  to  each  other,  in 
perspective.  Early  painters,  before  perspective  was  observed, 
were  accustomed  to  paint  objects  exactly  as  they  were,  and  not 
as  they  were  seen  from  a  certain  place.  Their  paintings  to-day 
seem  crude  to  us,  because  of  this.  The  effect  is  the  same  when  a 
writer  describes  objects  in  a  landscape  which  he  could  not  possibly 
see  from  any  point  of  view  in  which  the  rest  of  the  details  can  be 
grasped.  The  whole  picture  becomes  grotesque,  unproportioned, 
unreal.  Unity  in  description  depends  chiefly  upon  your  observ- 
ance of  this  fact,  and  upon  your  frequent  reference,  either  direct 
or  implied,  to  the  point  from  which  the  reader  is  to  look  upon  your 
landscape. 

Nous  entrames  dans  cette  maison,  dont  la  grande  chambre 
en  bas,  toute  sombre,  parce  qu'on  avait  blinde"  les  fenetres  avec 
des  sacs  de  terre,  etait  deja  pleine  de  soldats.  On  apercevait  dans 
le  fond  un  escalier  en  bois,  tres  roide,  ou  le  sang  coulait ;  des  coups 
de  fusils  partaient  d'en  haut.  Et  leurs  eclairs  montraient,  de, 
seconde  en  seconde,  cinq  ou  six  des  notres  affaisse's  centre  la  rampe, 
les  bras  pendants,  et  les  autres  que  leur  passaient  sur  le  corps,  la 
baionnette  en  avant,  pour  forcer  Pentree  de  la  soupente.  C'etait 
quelque  chose  d'horrible  que  tous  ces  hommes  —  avec  leurs 
moustaches,  leurs  joues  brunes,  la  fureur  peinte  dans  les  rides,  — 
qui  voulaient  monter  a  toute  force.  En  voyant  cela,  je  ne  sais 
quelle  rage  me  prit,  et  je  me  pris  a  crier: 

'  En  avant !  pas  de  quartier ! ' 

—  ERCKMANN-CHATRIAN  :  Waterloo. 


230 


EXGL1SH   COMPOSITION 

"  Courage ! "  he  said,  and  pointed  toward  the  land, 
"This  mounting  wave  will  roll  us  shoreward  soon." 
In  the  afternoon  they  came  unto  a  land 
In  which  it  seemed  always  afternoon. 
All  round  the  coast  the  languid  air  did  swoon, 
Breathing  like  one  that  hath  a  weary  dream. 
Full-faced  above  the  valley  stood  the  moon; 
And,  like  a  downward  smoke,  the  slender  stream 
Along  the  cliff  to  fall  and  pause  and  fall  did  seem. 

A  land  of  streams !  some  like  a  downward  smoke, 

Slow-dropping  veils  of  thinnest  lawn,  did  go; 

And  some  thro'  wavering  lights  and  shadows  broke, 

Rolling  a  slumbrous  sheet  of  foam  below. 

They  saw  the  gleaming  river  seaward  flow 

From  the  inner  lands ;   far  off,  three  mountain-tops, 

Three  silent  pinnacles  of  aged  snow, 

Stood  sunset-flushed;   and,  dew'd  with  showery  drops, 

Up-clomb  the  shadowy  pine  above  the  woven  copse. 

The  charmed  sunset  lingered  low  adown 

In  the  red  West:  thro'  mountain  clefts  the  dale 

Was  seen  far  inland,  and  the  yellow  down 

Border'd  with  palm,  and  many  a  winding  vale 

And  meadow,  set  with  slender  galingale; 

A  land  where  all  things  always  seemed  the  same! 

And  round  about  the  keel  with  faces  pale, 

Dark  faces  pale  against  that  rosy  flame, 

The  mild-eyed  melancholy  Lotus-eaters  came. 

Branches  they  bore  of  that  enchanted  stem, 
Laden  with  flower  and  fruit,  whereof  they  gave 
To  each,  but  whoso  did  receive  of  them, 
And  taste,  to  him  the  gushing  of  the  wave 
Far  far  away  did  seem  to  mourn  and  rave 
On  alien  shores;   and  if  his  fellow  spake, 
His  voice  was  thin,  as  voices  from  the  grave; 
And  deep-asleep  he  seemed,  yet  all  awake, 
And  music  in  his  ears  his  beating  heart  did  make. 

—  TEXXYSOX  :  The  Lotus-Eaters. 


DESCRIPTION  231 

The  fifth  point  of  comparison  is  the  right  of  selection  of  details. 
The  writer,  like  the  painter,  is  limited  to  a  certain  angle  of  vision. 
He  cannot  include  everything  he  sees,  nor  does  he  wish  to.  He 
avails  himself  of  the  privilege  of  rejection  of  such  details  as  are  in- 
significant, or  impede  the  main  point  of  the  description.  So  the 
photographer,  who  wishes  to  imitate  the  finer  effects  of  painting, 
deliberately  throws  a  part  of  his  landscape  out  of  focus,  and  renders 
it  indistinguishable  in  order  to  bring  out  his  main  subject  in  stronger 
relief.  The  trouble  with  the  ordinary  photograph  as  a  work  of  art 
is  usually  that  this  power  of  rejection  cannot  be  used. 

This  consideration  of  the  necessity  of  selection  in  our  building 
up  a  picture  from  details  naturally  brings  up  a  second  law  of 
Unity.  In  ordinary  description,  you  have  seen,  Unity  depends 
upon  the  point  of  view;  but  in  descriptions  of  character,  sound, 
and  many  other  things  you  have  no  point  of  view  to  guide  you  in 
the  observance  of  Unity  in  the  picture.  In  such  cases,  Unity  of 
Effect  should  be  your  aim.  Your  selection  of  details  will  depend 
entirely  upon  it.  All  descriptions  are  written  with  the  purpose  of 
making  a  vivid  impression  upon  the  imagination,  and  this  impres- 
sion can  only  be  vivid  if  it  is  single,  clear,  and  sharp. 

An  example  of  the  most  obvious  sort  of  selection  with  a  view 
to  single  effect  is  here  given. 

Whan  ended  was  the  lyf  of  seint  Cecyle, 
Er  we  had  riden  fully  fyve  myle, 
At  Boghton  under  Blee  us  gan  atake 
A  man,  that  clothed  was  in  clothes  blake, 
And  undernethe  he  hadde  a  whyt  surplys. 
His  hakeney,  that  was  al  pomely  grys, 
So  swatte,  that  it  wonder  was  to  see; 
It  semed  he  had  priked  myles  three. 
The  hors  eek  that  his  yeman  rood  upon 
So  swatte,  that  unnethe  mighte  it  gon. 
.  Aboute  the  peytrel  stood  the  foom  ful  hye, 
He  was  of  fome  al  flekked  as  a  pye. 
A  male  tweyfold  on  his  croper  lay, 
It  semed  that  he  caried  lyte  array. 
Al  light  for  somer  rood  this  worthy  man, 
And  in  myn  herte  wondren  I  bigan 


232 


ENGLISH   COMPOSITION 


What  that  he  was,  til  that  I  understood 
How  that  his  cloke  was  sowed  to  his  hood; 
For  which,  when  I  had  long  avysed  me, 
I  demed  him  som  chanon  for  to  be. 
His  hat  heng  at  his  bak  doun  by  a  laas, 
For  he  had  ridden  more  than  trot  or  paas; 
He  had  ay  priked  lyk  as  he  were  wood. 
A  clote-leef  he  hadde  under  his  hood 
For  swoot,  and  for  to  kepe  his  heed  from  hete, 
But  it  was  joye  for  to  seen  him  swete. 
His  foreheed  dropped  as  a  stillatorie 
Were  ful  of  plantain  and  of  paritorie. 
—  CHAUCER  :  The  Canon's  Yeoman's  Prologue  in  The  Canterbury  Tales. 

Finally,  as  a  sixth  and  last  point  of  comparison  —  for  we  must 
not  push  the  resemblance  too  far  —  what  you  select  as  the  chief 
note  in  your  description  must  be  original  with  you,  if  it  is  to  be 
sincere  writing;  just  as  the  painter  must  depend  in  the  long  run 
upon  his  own  personality,  for  his  best  work.  '  Moreover,  the  scene 
as  it  impresses  you  is  always  most  vivid.  You  will  often  hear  it  said, 
"I  am  always  glad  to  get  letters  from  X,  his  letters  are  so  fresh  and 
original."  This  usually  means,  that  the  writer  of  the  letters  has 
been  successful  in  conveying  his  own  impressions  of  what  he  sees. 
In  correspondence  more  than  in  any  other  writing,  the  writer  is 
free  to  develop  this  personal  tone  in  description,  which  adds  so 
much  to  the  vividness  of  the  picture.  The  success  of  Byron's 
most  famous  poem,  Childe  Harold's  Pilgrimage,  selections  from 
which  follow,  was  due  primarily  to  the  masterly  way  in  which 
Byron  described  Europe  as  he  saw  it,  and  thereby  gave  his  descrip- 
tion a  unity  which  other  books  of  travel  lacked. 

Moreover,  if  you  remember  that  your  description  depends  on 
your  personal  choice,  you  will  be  stimulated  all  the  more  to  keep 
your  eyes  and  ears  open,  to  examine  what  your  own  tastes  are, 
what  sort  of  sensations  appeal  most  to  you ;  and  your  writing  will 
gain  in  interest  accordingly.  One  may  insist  too  much  on  'he  unity 
which  personal  interest  gives  to  a  description,  but  the  tendency 
of  most  of  us  is  usually  so  far  in  the  other  direction,  —  so  much 
inclined  to  the  use  of  "one  sees,"  "one  notices,"  and  other  im- 
personal usages,  such  as  the  passive  voice,  "a  train  was  seen  to  be 


DESCRIPTION  233 

approaching,"  and  the  like,  —  that  emphasis  on  the  point  of  per- 
sonal impression  can  hardly  be  misplaced. 

(a)  Once  more  upon  the  waters !  yet  once  more ! 
And  the  waves  bound  beneath  me  as  a  steed 
That  knows  its  rider.     Welcome  to  their  roar! 
Swift  be  their  guidance,  wheresoe'er  it  lead ! 
Though  the  strain'd  mast  should  quiver  as  a  reed, 
And  the  rent  canvas  fluttering  strew  the  gale, 
Still  must  I  on;   for  I  am  as  a  weed, 

Flung  from  the  rock,  on  Ocean's  foam  to  sail 

Where'er  the  surge  may  sweep,  the  tempest's  breath  prevail. 

(b)  Clear  placid  Leman !  thy  contrasted  lake, 
With  the  wild  world  I  dwelt  in,  is  a  thing 
Which  warns  me,  with  its  stillness,  to  forsake 
Earth's  troubled  waters  for  a  purer  spring. 
This  quiet  sail  is  as  a  noiseless  wing 

To  waft  me  from  distraction;  once  I  loved 
Torn  Ocean's  roar,  but  thy  soft  murmuring 
Sounds  sweet  as  if  a  sister's  voice  reproved 
That  I  with  stern  delights  should  e'er  have  been  so  moved. 

The  castled  crag  of  Drachenfels 
Frowns  o'er  the  wide  and  winding  Rhine 
Whose  breast  of  waters  broadly  swells 
Between  the  banks  which  bear  the  vine, 
And  hills  all  rich  with  blossom'd  trees, 
And  fields  which  promise  corn  and  wine, 
And  scatter'd  cities  crowning  these, 
Whose  far  white  walls  along  them  shine, 
Have  strew'd  a  scene,  which  I  should  see 
With  double  joy,  wert  thou  with  me. 

—  BYRON  :  Childe  Harold's  Pilgrimage. 

Jane  Austen  thus  describes  the  impressions  of  a  romantic  girl, 
on  visiting  an  Abbey :  — 

She  knew  not  that  she  had  any  right  to  be  surprised,  but  there 
was  something  in  this  mode  of  approach  which  she  certainly  had 
not  expected.  To  pass  between  lodges  of  a  modern  appearance, 


234 


ENGLISH   COMPOSITION 


to  find  herself  with  such  ease  in  the  very  precincts  of  the  Abbey, 
and  driven  so  rapidly  along  a  smooth,  level  road  of  fine  gravel, 
without  obstacle,  alarm,  or  solemnity  of  any  kind,  struck  her  as 
odd  and  inconsistent.  She  was  not  long  at  leisure,  however,  for 
such  considerations.  A  sudden  scud  of  rain,  driving  full  in  her 
face,  made  it  impossible  for  her  to  observe  anything  farther,  and 
fixed  all  her  thoughts  on  the  welfare  of  her  new  straw-bonnet: 
and  she  was  actually  under  the  Abbey  walls,  was  springing, 
with  Henry's  assistance,  from  the  carriage,  was  beneath  the 
shelter  of  the  old  porch,  and  had  even  passed  on  to  the  hall, 
where  her  friend  and  the  General  were  waiting  to  welcome  her, 
without  feeling  one  awful  foreboding  of  future  misery  to  herself, 
or  one  moment's  suspicion  of  any  past  scenes  of  horror  being  acted 
within  the  solemn  edifice.  The  breeze  had  not  seemed  to  waft 
the  sighs  of  the  murdered  to  her;  it  had  wafted  nothing  worse 
than  a  thick  drizzling  rain,  and  having  given  a  good  shake  to 
her  habit,  she  was  ready  to  be  shewn  into  the  common  drawing- 
room,  and  capable  of  considering  where  she  was. 

An  abbey!  Yes,  it  was  delightful  to  be  really  in  an  abbey. 
But  she  doubted,  as  she  looked  round  the  room,  whether  anything 
within  her  observation  would  have  given  her  the  consciousness. 
The  furniture  was  in  all  the  profusion  of  modern  taste.  The  fire- 
place, where  she  had  expected  the  ample  width  and  ponderous 
carving  of  former  times,  was  contracted  to  a  Rumford,  with  slabs 
of  plain,  though  handsome  marble,  and  ornaments  over  it  of  the 
prettiest  English  china.  The  windows,  to  which  she  looked  with 
peculiar  dependence,  from  having  heard  the  General  talk  of  his 
preserving  them  in  their  Gothic  form  with  reverential  care,  were 
yet  less  what  her  fancy  had  portrayed.  To  be  sure  the  pointed 
arch  was  preserved,  the  form  of  them  was  Gothic,  they  might 
even  be  casements,  but  every  pane  was  so  large,  so  clear,  so  light. 
To  an  imagination  which  had  hoped  for  the  smallest  divisions 
and  the  heaviest  stonework,  for  painted  glass,  dirt,  and  cobwebs, 
the  difference  was  very  distressing. 

—  N orthanger  Abbey. 

Where  there  is  such  unity  as  this  in  the  observer's  mental  point 
of  view,  the  varying  scenes  which  may  be  described  are  easily 


DESCRIPTION  235 

linked  by  the  bond  of  personality.  Where  there  is  no  such  mental 
standpoint,  every  change  in  scene  must  be  marked  with  the  greatest 
care. 

So  far,  then,  as  the  general  laws  of  Unity  are  concerned,  unity 
of  point  of  view,  of  effect,  or  of  personality,  description  is  not  unlike 
painting.  We  can  hardly  carry  the  comparison  further,  useful 
though  it  be. 

Coherence  in  descriptions  asks  only  that  there  be  some  simple 
plan  in  setting  down  details.  It  will  vary  according  to  the  nature 
of  the  subject.  The  most  natural  plan  is  the  best;  if  not,  then 
climax  provides  an  easy  solution.  Tennyson's  Brook  shows  a 
typically  natural  plan. 

I  come  from  haunts  of  coot  and  hern, 

I  make  a  sudden  sally, 
And  sparkle  out  among  the  fern, 

To  bicker  down  a  valley. 

By  thirty  hills  I  hurry  down, 

Or  slip  between  the  ridges, 
By  twenty  thorps,  a  little  town, 

And  half  a  hundred  bridges. 

Till  last  by  Philip's  farm  I  flow 

To  join  the  brimming  river, 
For  men  may  come  and  men  may  go, 

But  I  go  on  forever. 

From  source  to  mouth,  from  top  to  bottom,  right  to  left,  head  to 
foot  —  any  plan,  so  long  as  it  be  orderly,  will  pass  muster.  An 
easy  method  is  to  recall  the  actual  process  by  which  the  eyes  take 
in  a  landscape :  the  general  outlines  first,  then  the  details.  Often 
a  second  look,  a  second  listening,  is  needed,  before  the  object  is 
really  seen  or  heard. 

But  you  will  soon  see,  when  you  begin  to  write  descriptions, 
that  the  main  stress  in  description  is  not  upon  Coherence.  De- 
scriptions are  usually  short,  and  the  details  have  naturally  a  close 
relation  to  each  other.  The  explanatory  terminology  of  exposition 
should  be  avoided  here  as  far  as  possible,  as  well  as  phrases  and 


236 


ENGLISH  COMPOSITION 


words  that  aid  transition;  and  the  details  should  be  left  unen- 
cumbered to  tell  their  own  story.  A  description  which  opens 
by  saying  that  a  certain  scene  is  very  beautiful,  without  specifying 
its  peculiar  appeal,  or  an  account  of  travel  which  dwells  on  the 
incidental  details  that  occur  in  every  journey,  is  very  tedious. 
Such  narrative  as  is  part  of  the  description  may  be  retained ;  the 
rest  should  be  suppressed,  as  tending  toward  obscurity.  The  two 
paragraphs  quoted  above  from  Miss  Austen  show  narrative  detail 
skillfully  combined  with  description. 

Where  the  description  is  long  enough  to  make  it  necessary,  an 
effective  method  of  preserving  coherence  among  the  numerous 
details  of  description  is  to  treat  the  details  as  in  series,  either 
several  in  a  sentence  with  parallel  clauses,  or  each  in  a  separate 
sentence  of  parallel  structure,  or  both  methods  combined.  The 
same  grammatical  treatment  gives  like  value  to  each  detail,  and 
the  whole  scene  is  brought  in  as  a  unit. 

In  the  meantime,  the  seasons  gradually  rolled  on.  The  little 
frogs  which  had  piped  in  the  meadows  in  early  spring,  croaked 
as  bull-frogs  during  the  summer  heats,  and  then  sank  into  silence. 
The  peach-tree  budded,  blossomed,  and  bore  its  fruit.  The 
swallows  and  martins  came,  twitted  about  the  roof,  built  their 
nests,  reared  their  young,  held  their  congress  among  the  eaves, 
and  then  winged  their  flight  in  search  of  another  spring.  The  cater- 
pillar spun  its  winding-sheet,  dangled  in  it  from  the  great  button- 
wood  tree  before  the  house;  turned  into  a  moth,  fluttered  with  the 
last  sunshine  of  summer,  and  disappeared ;  and  finally  the  leaves 
of  the  buttonwood  tree  turned  yellow,  then  brown,  then  rustled 
one  by  one  to  the  ground,  and  whirling  about  in  little  eddies  of  wind 
and  dust,  whispered  that  winter  was  at  hand. 

—  WASHINGTON  IRVING:  Wolfert  Webber. 

The  lofty  houses ;  the  stately,  though  narrow  and  gloomy,  streets; 
the  splendid  display  of  the  richest  goods  and  most  gorgeous  armor 
in  the  warehouses  and  shops  around ;  the  walks  crowded  by  busy 
citizens  of  every  description,  passing  and  repassing  with  faces  of 
careful  importance  or  eager  bustle ;  the  huge  wains,  which  trans- 
ported to  and  fro  the  subject  of  export  and  import,  the  former  con- 


DESCRIPTION  237 

sisting  of  broadcloths  and  serge,  arms  of  all  kinds,  nails  and  iron- 
work, while  the  latter  comprehended  every  article  of  use  or  luxury 
intended  either  for  the  consumption  of  an  opulent  city  or  received 
in  barter  and  destined  to  be  transported  elsewhere  —  all  these 
objects  combined  to  form  an  engrossing  picture  of  wealth,  bustle, 
and  splendor,  to  which  Quentin  had  hitherto  been  a  stranger. 
—  WALTER  SCOTT  :  Quentin  Durward. 

If  we  give  a  paragraph  to  Emphasis  in  description,  it  is  only 
to  insist  upon  what  has  already  been  suggested.  To  give  space 
and  precedence  to  the  details  that  directly  contribute  to  your  desired 
effect,  to  subdue  what  is  incidental,  is  to  observe  proportion  in 
descriptive  writing.  The  general  outline  of  the  scene  is  usually 
given  first,  and  supplemented  afterwards  by  the  details  which  con- 
tribute to  the  main  effect.  With  equally  good  results,  the  details 
may  often  be  grouped  in  a  climactic  order.  Care  should  be  taken, 
of  course,  that  no  details  are  given  a  prominence  which  would  not 
be  justified  in  reality.  In  Blackmore's  romantic  novel  of  Lorna 
Doone,  the  account  of  the  water-slide  is  a  fine  piece  of  description, 
and  perfectly  justified  in  a  romance;  but  visitors  to  the  actual 
Doone  Valley  are  always  disappointed  to  find  a  little  gully  of  no 
size  at  all  as  the  only  basis  in  fact  for  the  water-slide  which  plays 
so  large  a  part  in  the  story.  Where  the  descriptions  are  of  actual 
objects,  your  emphasis  on  details  must  be  proportionate,  not  only 
to  the  effect  you  wish  to  convey,  but  to  the  facts  as  they  are. 

In  this  general  survey  of  the  laws  of  description,  we  have  seen 
that  expository  description,  while  it  may  contain  imaginative 
touches,  is  really  pure  exposition,  and  to  be  studied  as  part  of  that 
form  of  composition.  Imaginative  description  is  like  painting  in 
the  three  points  of  equipment  (the  instruments  of  expression,  the 
character  of  the  artist,  and  the  field  of  labor) ;  it  is  further  like 
painting  in  that  the  law  of  Unity  applies  in  both  to  the  point  of 
view,  the  effect  produced,  and  the  personality  of  the  artist. 

Turning  now  from  the  general  methods  of  descriptive  writing 
to  the  particular  devices  of  the  art,  we  find  one  term  which  covers 
the  whole  subject,  —  suggestion.  Imaginative  description  might, 
indeed,  be  better  termed  suggestive  description,  were  it  not  that 
the  latter  phrase  does  not  indicate  the  object  of  our  appeal.  We 


238  ENGLISH   COMPOSITION 

are  aiming  at  the  imagination  through  the  force  of  suggestion,  and 
our  purpose  better  defines  our  work  than  does  our  weapon.  It  is 
time,  however,  to  examine  this  weapon  closely,  and  to  learn  as 
far  as  may  be  its  various  uses.  We  have  already  considered  some 
phases  of  the  subject  in  the  chapter  on  the  Right  Word  (p.  159). 

Suggestion  in  description  is  primarily  the  action  of  bringing 
up  in  the  reader's  mind  a  mental  picture  of  what  you  see.  The 
most  vivid  mental  picture  will  be  brought  up  by  the  use  of  con- 
crete terms,  and  by  the  closeness  with  which  the  words  fit  the  ideas. 
It  is  a  mistake  for  the  young  writer  to  feel  that  he  must  cudgel  his 
brain  for  violent  metaphors  and  overwrought  similes.  We  shall 
give  full  value  to  the  devices  that  aid  suggestion,  but  when  all  is  said, 
it  remains  true  that  the  fundamental  requirements  of  descriptive 
suggestion  are  aptness  and  concreteness. 

All  this  is  only  repeating  that  keen  observation  on  your  part, 
your  search  for  what  is  particular,  what  is  individual,  what  is 
characteristic,  will  in  the  end  reward  you  more  than  will  all  fine- 
spun epithets  and  brilliant  figures  of  rhetoric.  And  since  the 
concrete  facts  about  any  object  are  never  very  many,  this  very 
limitation  of  circumstances  will  teach  you  another  great  point  in 
description,  —  to  be  brief.  Your  reader's  capacity  to  take  in  the 
details  of  your  picture  is  limited  as  well ;  he  loses  the  first  before 
the  last  is  told,  and  in  a  few  moments  the  whole  picture  has  blurred. 
Just  as  diminishing  the  diaphragm  in  front  of  the  lens  sharpens  and 
clears  the  image  in  the  camera,  so  compressing  the  description 
and  concentrating  on  a  few  significant  details  sharpens  the  out- 
lines and  makes  the  impression  permanent. 

This  is  particularly  true,  it  may  be  noted  parenthetically,  in 
the  case  of  descriptions  of  persons.  You  cannot  crowd  many 
details  into  a  description  of  this  sort  without  confusion.  A  single 
incident,  a  single  habitual  gesture,  will  tell  enough  of  a  man's 
character  for  all  practical  purposes.  The  one  significant  trait  may 
be  reinforced,  if  you  like,  by  illustrative  material  but  in  character- 
drawing  compactness  is  the  chief  essential.  So  far  as  the  outer 
man  is  concerned,  there  are  few  significant  details,  —  stature,  com- 
plexion, walk,  and  strongly  marked  features.  You  have  only 
a  half-dozen  strokes  at  most ;  make  the  most  of  them. 

Benjamin  Franklin  thus  describes  his  father:  — 


DESCRIPTION 


239 


I  think  you  may  like  to  know  something  of  his  person  and  char- 
acter. He  had  an  excellent  constitution  of  body,  was  of  middle 
stature  but  well  set,  and  very  strong;  he  was  ingenious,  could  draw 
prettily,  was  skilled  a  little  in  music,  and  had  a  clear,  pleasing  voice, 
so  that  when  he  played  psalm  tunes  on  his  violin  and  sung  withal, 
as  he  sometimes  did  in  an  evening  after  the  business  of  the  day  was 
over,  it  was  extremely  agreeable  to  hear.  He  had  a  mechanical 
genius,  too,  and  on  occasion,  was  very  handy  in  the  use  of  other 
tradesmen's  tools;  but  his  great  excellence  lay  in  a  sound  under- 
standing and  solid  judgment  in  prudential  matters,  both  in  public 
and  private  affairs. 

—  Autobiography  of  Benjamin  Franklin. 

In  the  character  of  the  country  doctor,  given  below,  the  dis- 
tinguishing marks  of  the  outward  man  are  made  to  indicate  the 
inner  nature  of  the  man  and  the  details  are  expanded  by  the  use- 
ful method  of  illustrative  anecdote.  The  details  themselves,  how- 
ever, are  few. 

No  one  sent  for  MacLure  save  in  great  straits,  and  the  sight  of 
him  put  courage  in  sinking  hearts.  But  this  was  not  by  the  grace 
.of  his  appearance,  or  the  advantage  of  a  good  bedside  manner. 
A  tall,  gaunt,  loosely  made  man,  without  an  ounce  of  superfluous 
flesh  on  his  body,  his  face  burnt  a  dark  brick  colour  by  constant 
exposure  to  the  weather,  red  hair  and  beard  turning  grey,  honest 
blue  eyes  that  looked  you  ever  in  the  face,  huge  hands  with  wrist- 
bones  like  the  shank  of  a  ham,  and  a  voice  that  hurled  his  salu- 
tations across  two  fields,  he  suggested  the  moor  rather  than  the 
drawing-room.  But  what  a  clever  hand  it  was  in  an  operation, 
as  delicate  as  a  woman's,  and"  what  a  kindly  voice  it  was  in  the 
humble  room  where  the  shepherd's  wife  was  weeping  by  her  man's 
bedside.  He  was  "ill  pitten  thegither"  to  begin  with,  but  many 
of  his  physical  defects  were  the  penalties  of  his  work,  and  endeared 
him  to  the  Glen.  That  ugly  scar  that  cut  into  his  right  eyebrow 
and  gave  him  such  a  sinister  expression,  was  got  one  night  Jess 
slipped  on  the  ice  and  laid  him  insensible  eight  miles  from  home. 
His  limp  marked  the  big  snowstorm  in  the  fifties,  when  his  horse 
missed  the  road  in  Glen  Urtach,  and  they  rolled  together  in  a  drift 
MacLure  escaped  with  a  broken  leg  and  the  fracture  of  three  ribs, 


240  ENGLISH   COMPOSITION 

but  he  never  walked  like  other  men  again.  He  could  not  swing 
into  the  saddle  without  making  two  attempts  and  holding  Jess's 
mane.  Neither  can  you  "  warstle  "  through  the  peat  bogs  and  snow- 
drifts for  forty  winters  without  a  touch  of  rheumatism.  But  they 
were  honourable  scars,  and  for  such  risks  of  life  men  get  the  Vic- 
toria Cross  in  other  fields.  MacLure  got  nothing  but  the  secret 
affection  of  the  Glen,  which  knew  that  none  had  ever  done  one- 
tenth  as  much  for  it  as  this  ungainly,  twisted,  battered  figure,  and 
I  have  seen  a  Drumtochty  face  soften  at  the  sight  of  MacLure 
limping  to  his  horse. 

—  IAN  MACLAREN  (WATSON)  :  A  Doctor  of  the  Old  School. 

Yet  though  a  few  vivid  touches  are  best  in  character  description, 
it  is  possible  to  carry  this  rule  too  far,  both  here  and  elsewhere. 
In  proportion  as  the  descriptive  element  is  compressed,  it  must 
make  up  for  brevity  by  significance.  Few  of  us  have  the  power 
of  hitting  off  a  scene  or  a  character  in  a  phrase,  and  for  students 
in  composition  there  is  distinct  danger  in  urging  too  strongly 
swiftness  and  compactness  of  presentation  before  the  whole  de- 
scriptive range  has  been  covered.  Behind  the  phrases  with  which 
Lincoln  was  able  to  summarize  a  great  situation  in  a  dozen  words, 
lay  a  great  experience  of  life.  It  took  a  George  Borrow  to  call 
a  certain  house  "a  pandemonium  in  red  brick."  Until  some  such 
experience,  as  that  great  writer  had,  is  gained,  the  student  had  best 
not  try  to  strike  off  a  portrait  in  a  phrase,  but  rather  fill  in  as  com- 
plete and  accurate  a  picture  as  his  reader  can  carry  away.  He 
must  depend  for  his  power  of  suggestion  upon  telling  the  truth, 
and  the  whole  truth. 

But  concreteness  and  brevity  of  themselves  would  make  but 
a  bare  description.  Two  other  valuable  methods  for  obtaining 
descriptive  power  are  equally  important  —  comparison  and 
contrast.  By  relating  the  object  you  wish  to  present  to  some  other 
object  more  familiar  to  your  reader,  you  gain  an  instant  entrance 
into  his  imagination.1  It  must,  however,  be  emphasized  that  the 
comparison  should  be  a  familiar  one.  An  American  discussing 
the  constellations  with  an  English  friend  is  surprised  to  find  that 

1  See  on  this  point  the  chapter  on  The  Right  Word,  pp.  159-162,  which 
has  more  to  say  about  the  use  of  rhetorical  figures. 


DESCRIPTION  241 

the  name  Dipper,  for  a  certain  part  of  the  Great  Bear,  does  not 
appeal  to  the  Englishman  so  much  as  does  his  own  name,  Charles's 
Wain.  The  dipper  is  practically  unknown  in  England ;  the  great 
farmer's  wagon  universal.  A  comparison,  to  be  obvious,  must 
be  familiar. 

Thus  the  usefulness  of  comparing  Italy  to  a  boot  is  recognized 
throughout  the  world,  and  to  say  that  the  recent  earthquakes 
affected  the  toe  of  the  boot  places  them  instantly.  Lake  Erie 
and  the  Niagara  River  are  undeniably  like  a  whale  spouting,  but 
the  comparison  is  neither  so  obvious  nor  so  familiar,  and  is  there- 
fore less  valuable. 

In  the  use  of  comparisons,  one  must  employ  such  figures 
as  would  naturally  occur  to  the  person  who  is  represented  as 
looking  at  the  picture.  The  ease  with  which  a  figure  becomes 
unnatural  through  the  slightest  infringement  of  this  rule  is 
surprising. 

James  Lane  Allen,  in  his  Kentucky  Cardinal,  represents  his 
ornithologist  hero  as  comparing  people  to  birds. 

Among  the  neighbors  who  furnish  me  much  of  the  plain  prose 
of  life,  the  nearest  hitherto  has  been  a  bachelor  named  Jacob 
Mariner.  I  called  him  my  rain-crow,  because  the  sound  of  his 
voice  awoke  apprehensions  of  falling  weather.  A  visit  from  him 
was  an  endless  drizzle. 

Of  a  gossipy  old  lady :  — 

I  call  Mrs.  Walters  my  mocking  bird,  because  she  reproduces 
by  what  is  truly  a  divine  arrangement  of  the  throat  the  voices  of  the 
town.  When  she  flutters  across  to  the  yellow  settee  under  the 
grapevine  and  balances  herself  lightly  with  expectation,  I  have 
but  to  request  that  she  favor  me  with  a  little  singing,  and  soon  the 
air  is  vocal  with  every  note  of  the  village  songsters. 

On  the  other  hand,  when  in  his  Summer  in  Arcady  he  has  been 
describing  a  country  girl  in  the  spring  house  on  a  Kentucky  farm, 
he  digresses  to  introduce  some  classical  comparisons,  and  the  effect 
is  bad. 


242 


ENGLISH  COMPOSITION 


Seeing  her  standing  thus,  slender  and  still  on  the  low,  green 
stones  as  though  poised  on  the  leaves  of  the  lotus,  with  only  the 
voices  of  the  tiny  spring  rippling  on  the  silence  as  it  struggled  out 
of  its  caverns,  the  fancy  forgot  who  she  was  and  fell  to  dreaming 
of  those  faint,  far  shapes  that  in  the  youth  of  the  world's  imagina- 
tion haunted  the  borderland  of  mystery  and  reality.  What  was 
she  but  a  nymph  of  the  fountain,  brought  by  some  late  disaster 
to  ponder  the  secrets  of  life  and  nature? 

Antithesis  may  be  equally  effective  in  suggestion.  Often  telling 
what  an  object  is  not  helps  to  picture  it  all  the  more  vividly.  The 
contrast  must,  however,  be  very  much  to  the  point,  if  it  is  to  be 
effective  at  all.  An  easier  way  of  using  contrast  is  between  details 
in  the  same  picture.  Here  the  climactic  order  is  of  importance, 
for  the  object  contrasted  last  has  the  more  significant  position. 

The  picture  presented  to  his  eye  was  not  calculated  to  enliven 
his  mind.  The  old  mansion  stood  out  against  the  western  sky, 
black  and  silent.  One  long,  lurid  pencil  stroke  along  a  sky  of 
slate  was  all  that  was  left  of  daylight.  No  sign  of  life  was  ap- 
parent ;  no  light  at  any  window,  unless  it  might  have  been  on  the 
side  of  the  house  hidden  from  view.  No  owls  were  on  the  chim- 
neys, no  dogs  were  in  the  yard. 

—  GEORGE  W.  CABLE  :  Old  Creole  Days. 

Sighing  at  these  words,  as  if  they  were  her  own  utterance,  the 
listener  lifted  her  eyes  to  the  king,  and,  seeing  his  clear,  penetrating 
gaze  fixed  upon  her,  blushed,  and  turned  her  face  to  the  window. 

Her  body  was  frail  and  slender  as  a  flower's  stem,  and  his  rugged 
and  robust,  like  a  stout  blade  beaten  into  shape  under  the  blows 
of  a  forging  hammer;  the  eyes  of  each  were  great  and  gray,  but 
hers  soft  as -a  falcon  in  mew,  and  his  keen  as  a  hawk  trussing; 
her  skin,  softer  than  the  tissue  of  her  silken  garments,  was  scarcely 
less  white,  and  his,  bronzed  by  many  winds  and  suns,  was  darker 
than  the  brown  moustache,  which,  thick  and  strong  like  the  brows 
and  hair,  overshadowed  the  firm  lines  of  the  mouth.  Where  the 
subtle  likeness  between  the  two  hid  were  hard  to  say,  though  it 
struck  the  shallowest  observer  at  a  glance. 

—  A.  S.  HARDY:  Passe  Rose. 


DESCRIPTION 


243 


Another  and  most  useful  method  of  heightening  suggestive 
power  is  to  describe  the  effect  which  the  pictured  scene  makes 
on  the  beholder.  It  has  been  a  favorite  pastime  of  practical 
jokers  to  stand  upon  the  street  gazing  steadily  at  a  building  till  a 
crowd  gathers  round  them,  no  man  knowing  what  he  looks  at,  but 
each  stimulated  by  the  sight  of  interest  in  others.  Scarcely  any 
method  of  widening  the  range  of  suggestion  has  greater  possibilities 
than  this.  It  is  the  effect  of  an  experience,  graven  in  the  deep 
lines  of  The  Ancient  Mariner's  face,  that  compels  the  Wedding 
Guest  to  linger  and  listen.  Keats  describes  Chapman's  transla- 
tion of  Homer  by  a  comparison  of  its  effect  upon  him  to  similar 
effects  upon  other  men. 

He  holds  him  with  his  glittering  eye  — 
The  Wedding  Guest  stood  still, 
And  listens  like  a  three  years'  child: 
The  Mariner  hath  his  will. 

The  Wedding  Guest  sat  on  a  stone; 
He  cannot  choose  but  hear; 
And  thus  spake  on  that  ancient  man, 
The  bright-eyed  Mariner. 
***** 

"I  fear  thee,  Ancient  Mariner!" 
"  Be  calm,  thou  Wedding  Guest !  " 

—  COLERIDGE:  Rime  of  the  Ancient  Mariner. 

Much  have  I  travel'd  in  the  realms  of  gold, 

And  many  goodly  states  and  kingdoms  seen; 

Round  many  western  islands  have  I  been 
Which  bards  in  fealty  to  Apollo  hold. 
Oft  of  one  wide  expanse  had  I  been  told 

That  deep-brow'd  Homer  ruled  as  his  demesne: 

Yet  never  did  I  breathe  its  pure  serene 
Till  I  heard  Chapman  speak  out  loud  and  bold : 
Then  felt  I  like  some  watcher  of  the  skies 

When  a  new  planet  swims  into  his  ken ; 
Or  like  stout  Cortez  when  with  eagle  eyes 

He  star'd  at  the  Pacific  —  and  all  his  men 


244  ENGLISH   COMPOSITION 

Look'd  at  each  other  with  a  wild  surmise  — 
Silent,  upon  a  peak  in  Darien. 
—  KEATS  :  On  First  Looking  into  Chapman's  Homer. 

It  has  been  pointed  out  in  another  connection  that  variety  of 
sense-appeal  is  one  of  the  advantages  of  description  by  means  of 
words ; 1  but  we  must  now  go  farther  than  this,  and  assert  that  any 
description  which  lacks  this  variety  of  appeal  is  lacking  in  an 
essential  part  of  its  nature.  In  particular,  sound,  motion,  and 
feeling  must  be  added  to  a  landscape,  lest  it  remain  lifeless  and  un- 
naturally still.  The  proper  words  to  convey  these  ideas  of  action 
are  of  course  those  words  which  indicate  action,  —  namely,  verbs. 
Few  things  are  more  important  in  description  than  the  verb. 
Look  back  to  the  extract  from  Kipling's  Captains  Courageous, 
and  note  the  number  of  verb-forms  in  proportion  to  other  descrip- 
tive words;  or  try  the  same  with  Gilbert  White's  paragraph 
on  the  flight  of  birds  and  note  the  number  of  verbs  he  employs  to 
denote  flying.  On  the  other  hand,  a  scene  cannot  be  so  still  that 
the  verb  with  descriptive  power  is  not  wanted  to  describe  it. 
Note  the  participles  as  well  as  the  other  forms  of  the  verb  in  the 
following  passage :  — 

Upon  the  midsummer  woods  most  of  all  lay  brooding  stillness 
and  subtle,  relaxing  heat.  In  the  depths  of  one  the  moo  of  a  rest- 
less heifer  broke  at  intervals  upon  the  ear  like  a  faint,  far  bell  of 
distress.  The  squirrel  was  asleep.  The  cuckoo  barely  lilted  in  silky 
flight  among  the  trees.  The  mourning  moth  lay  on  the  thistle 
with  flattened  wings  as  still  as  death.  The  blue  snake  doctor  had 
dropped  on  the  brink  of  the  green  pool  like  a  lost  jewel.  Amid 
such  silence  in  a  forest,  the  imagination  takes  on  the  belief  that  all 
things  in  Nature  understand  and  are  waiting  for  some  one  to  come 
—  for  something  to  happen  that  they  will  all  feel. 

Daphne  glided  like  a  swift,  noiseless  shadow  into  the  woods. 
—  JAMES  LANE  ALLEN:  Summer  in  Arcady. 

In  the  search  for  unity  of  effect,  to  which  reference  has  been 
made  under  the  law  of  Unity,  you  will  not  neglect  one  valuable 

1  See  p.  227. 


DESCRIPTION 


245 


aid  in  suggestive  power,  —  the  great  number  of  synonyms  with 
which  our  language  is  endowed.  By  a  judicious  use  of  words 
synonymous  with  the  effect  you  desire  to  convey,  you  can  hammer 
in  your  meaning  by  successive  blows.  An  extreme  case  is 
Coleridge's  line 

Around  me  and  above 

Deep  is  the  air,  and  dark,  substantial,  black, 

An  ebon  mass. 

In  the  passage  given  below,  this  method  is  less  obvious. 

The  southern  cross  flashed  down  from  the  myriad  stars  in  its 
startling  splendor.  The  moon  shone  bright  over  the  vast,  silent 
plain,  limitless,  broken  only  by  the  undulating  mounds  and  the 
infinitely  stretching  clumps  of  karroo  bushes.  The  campfire, 
just  replenished  with  damp  twigs  and  shrubs,  burned  sulkily  and 
the  smoke  ascended  in  spirals  into  the  clear  air.  The  hooded 
wagon  depended  helplessly  on  its  shafts.  The  Kaffirs,  wrapped 
in  blankets,  slept  beneath.  The  oxen,  outspanned  some  distance 
off,  chewed  the  cud  in  sharp,  rhythmic  munches.  The  universe 
was  still  —  awfully  still.  All  gave  the  sense  of  the  littleness  of  man 
and  the  immensity  of  space. 

—  W.  J.  LOCKE:  Derelicts. 

Here  every  sentence  conveys  an  effect  of  stillness,  though  but 
two  synonyms,  silent  and  still,  are  used. 

The  use  of  the  word  awfully,  in  the  last  part  of  the  last  selection, 
introduces  another  point  to  be  observed  in  striving  for  suggestive 
power.  Mr.  Locke  meant  by  the  word  just  what  it  ought  to  mean, 
to  the  point  oj  inspiring  awe.  More  of  the  context,  if  we  could 
give  the  space,  would  bring  this  out  even  more  clearly.  He  was 
justified,  for,  while  heightening  the  suggestion,  he  added  a  new 
thought.  He  did  not  mean  the  word  as  a  mere  vague,  intensive 
modifier  of  still,  in  which  sense  we  use  it  every  day  as  convenient 
colloquial  slang,  as  "awfully  nice,"  "awfully  quick,"  etc.  Had  he 
done  so,  the  effect  would  have  been  a  complete  anti-climax.  In 
general,  then,  learn  to  use  sparingly  in  description  all  adverbs  of 
degree,  such  as  most,  very,  exceedingly,  and  depend  upon  the 


246  ENGLISH   COMPOSITION 

number  and  vividness  of  your  details  for  the  degree  of  effect  you 
wish  to  secure. 

Another  way  of  avoiding  triteness  in  description  is  to  "rub  out 
the  penciling,"  to  conceal  the  too  obvious  plan  upon  which  you 
are  working.  Spare  your  reader  too  many  of  the  following,  "if 
one  should  go  to  the  edge  of  the  hill,  one  would  see,"  "one  is  apt 
to  notice,"  "it  was  an  interesting  sight,"  "it  made  a  pretty  picture," 
"he  had  on,"  "he  was,"  "he  wore,"  "of  striking  appearance,"  "it 
seemed  as  if,"  etc.,  etc.  Phrase  your  thoughts  so  as  to  avoid  these 
expressions,  for  they  are  too  well  worn  to  pass  current  now.  They 
obstruct  the  definiteness  of  your  picture,  for  their  own  outlines 
are  rubbed  smooth  by  overuse. 

While  the  subject  is  properly  treated  elsewhere,1  yet  a  word  at 
least  is  needed  to  suggest  to  students  the  power  in  the  sound  of 
words.  You  can  hardly  expect  to  go  far  in  this  direction,  and  will 
do  well  perhaps  to  heed  Lewis  Carroll's  burlesque  dictum,  "Take 
care  of  the  sense,  and  the  sounds  will  take  care  of  themselves."  But 
even  so,  you  will  sometimes  have  a  choice  to  make  between  synony- 
mous words  of  relatively  equal  suggestive  value  so  far  as  meaning 
is  concerned.  Let  your  ear  in  such  cases  be  umpire  as  to  which 
sound  helps  most  to  convey  the  sense;  but  remember  in  all  cir- 
cumstances that  "high  sounding"  does  not  necessarily  mean 
"  sounding  in  tune."  It  has  been  said  that  it  is  the  little  poets  that 
use  big  words. 

The  devices  which  we  have  examined  under  the  head  of  sug- 
gestion are  concreteness,  brevity,  the  use  of  such  rhetorical  figures 
as  comparison  and  antithesis,  utilizing  the  effect  of  the  scene  upon 
an  observer,  repetition  by  synonyms,  care  in  the  choice  of  verbs, 
and  euphony.  The  list  could  no  doubt  be  greatly  extended.  The 
reader  may  find  others  in  the  various  types  of  description  given 
at  the  end  of  the  chapter.  For  our  purposes,  however,  the  list  is 
long  enough  to  show  the  numerous  means  at  hand  to  aid  the  writer 
of  description. 

The  single  fact  that  many  of  our  selections  in  this  chapter  are 
from  stories  is  proof  enough  that  Description  and  Narration  are 
closely  joined  in  writing.  Speaking  in  the  terms  of  the  theater, 

1  See  in  the  chapter  on  The  Right  Word,  p.  162. 


DESCRIPTION 


247 


we  may  say  that  all  the  illusion  that  is  accomplished  on  the  stage 
by  scenery,  costuming,  music,  dance,  and  picturesque  action  is 
accomplished  in  the  narrative  by  the  descriptive  art.  Yet  though 
Description  is  indispensable  to  Narrative,  it  is  subordinate.  We 
cannot  keep  our  attention  long  on  Description,  but  Narrative  holds 
our  interest  unflagging.  Narrative,  therefore,  has  the  larger  field, 
although  in  many  cases  it  must  owe  much  of  its  charm  to  the  lesser 
art.  The  writer  who  keeps  in  mind  the  pictorial  side  of  action  will 
gain  much  in  vividness  of  narration. 

The  description  in  a  story,  to  be  most  effective,  must  be  thor- 
oughly knit  up  with  the  action.  Many  of  the  descriptive  touches 
in  a  good  yarn  will  be  found  in  those  sentences  which  tell  the  action 
of  the  story.  The  description  must  be  an  intimate  and  proper  part 
of  the  story,  and  must  not  be  lugged  in  for  effect.  The  amount 
of  space  it  will  occupy  will  depend  entirely  upon  the  nature  of 
the  story.  Mr.  Allen's  Summer  in  Arcady,  as  its  title  implies,  needs 
a  great  deal  of  description,  while  a  narrative  from  the  Old  Testa- 
ment will  have  but  little. 

Of  all  who  have  written  narrative,  Homer  is  the  master  in  his 
handling  of  descriptive  material.  The  two  extracts  given  below 
(p.  248)  show  his  method  sufficiently  well,  but  to  exhibit  it  com- 
pletely one  would  have  to  insert  both  the  Iliad  and  Odyssey,  so 
completely  are  narrative  and  descriptive  mingled.  In  Homer, 
every  incident  is  visualized,  so  that  one  sees  the  action  as  if  in  a 
series  of  changing  views,  and  feels  and  hears  as  well.  This  is 
accomplished,  more  than  in  any  other  way,  by  fidelity  to  the  work- 
ing out  of  detail.  And  it  is  upon  this,  in  the  last  analysis,  that 
all  good  description  depends. 

To  sum  up,  then,  these  diverse  hints  upon  descriptive  writing, 
we  find  that  Description,  which  shares  with  Exposition  the  setting 
down  of  numerous  details,  differs  from  that  form  in  its  purpose  of 
picturing  objects  rather  than  of  making  them  understood.  Ex- 
pository description  is  really  exposition,  and  the  rules  which  apply 
to  that  form  of  writing  apply  to  it.  Imaginative  description, 
which  alone  is  true  description,  is  closely  related  to  the  art  of 
painting,  in  the  equipment  of  keenness  of  observation  which  the 
artist  must  possess,  in  the  fact  that  words,  like  line  and  color,  can 
portray  objects,  and  in  the  common  requirements  of  one  point  of 


248  ENGLISH   COMPOSITION 

view,  one  central  effect,  and  one  personal  note  of  the  creator  of  the 
picture.  Unity,  Coherence,  and  Emphasis  apply  to  Description, 
though  the  two  latter  laws  are  less  difficult  to  follow  than  in  Ex- 
position. The  suggestive  power  of  a  description  may  be  height- 
ened by  many  devices,  chiefly  by  concentration  upon  a  few  strong 
outlines,  by  comparison,  contrast,  and  other  figures,  by  noting  the 
effect  of  the  scene  upon  the  observer,  by  repetition  through  the  use 
of  synonyms,  by  careful  attention  to  the  suggestive  power  of  verbs 
as  well  as  of  adjectives  and  nouns,  and  by  some  care  in  the  selec- 
tion of  words  according  to  the  effect  produced  by  their  sound. 
Keeping  these  points  in  mind,  you  may  learn  Description  best, 
perhaps,  by  the  diligent  study  of  models,  such  as  are  appended  to 
this  chapter.  Only  so  far  as  the  theoretical  side  of  the  art  is 
concerned,  however,  will  you  do  this;  nothing  can  ever  take  the 
place  of  accurate  and  sympathetic  observation  of  life. 


SPECIMENS   OF   DESCRIPTION 

TRANSLATIONS   FROM   THE   ODYSSEY 

i.   Odysseus  gets  to  land. 

Whilst  yet  he  pondered  these  things  in  his  heart,  a  great  wave 
bore  him  to  the  rugged  shore.  There  would  he  have  been  stript 
of  his  skin  and  all  his  bones  been  broken,  but  that  the  goddess, 
grey-eyed  Athene,  put  a  thought  into  his  heart.  He  rushed  in 
and  with  both  his  hands  clutched  the  rock,  whereto  he  clung  till 
the  great  wave  went  by.  So  he  escaped  that  peril,  but  again  with 
backward  wash  it  leapt  on  him  and  smote  him  and  cast  him  forth 
into  the  deep.  And  as  when  the  cuttle-fish  is  dragged  forth  from 
his  chamber,  the  many  pebbles  clinging  to  his  suckers,  even  so 
was  the  skin  stript  from  his  strong  hand,  and  the  great  wave 
closed  over  him.  There  of  a  truth  would  luckless  Odysseus  have 
perished  beyond  that  which  was  ordained,  had  not  grey-eyed 
Athene  given  him  sure  counsel.  He  rose  from  the  line  of  the 
breakers  that  belch  upon  the  shore,  and  swam  outside,  ever  look- 
ing landwards,  to  find,  if  he  might,  spits  that  take  the  waves 
aslant,  and  havens  of  the  sea.  But  when  he  came  in  his  swimming 


DESCRIPTION  249 

over  against  the  mouth  of  a  fair-flowing  river,  whereby  the  place 
seemed  best  in  his  eyes,  smooth  of  rocks,  and  withal  there  was  a 
covert  from  the  wind,  Odysseus  felt  the  river  running,  and  prayed 
to  him  in  his  heart:  — 

"Hear  me,  O  king,  whosoever  thou  art:  unto  thee  am  I  come, 
as  to  one  to  whom  prayer  is  made,  whilst  I  flee  the  rebukes  of 
Poseidon  from  the  deep.  Yea,  reverend  even  to  the.  deathless 
gods  is  that  man  who  comes  as  a  wanderer,  even  as  I  now  have 
come  to  thy  stream  and  to  thy  knees  after  much  travail.  Nay 
pity  me,  O  king;'  for  I  avow  myself  thy  suppliant." 

So  spake  he,  and  the  god  straightway  stayed  his  stream  and 
withheld  his  waves,  and  made  the  water  smooth  before  him,  and 
brought  him  safely  to  the  mouths  of  the  river.  And  his  knees 
bowed  and  his  stout  hands  fell,  for  his  heart  was  broken  by  the 
brine.  And  his  flesh  was  all  swollen  and  a  great  stream  of  sea 
water  gushed  up  through  his  mouth  and  nostrils.  So  he  lay 
without  breath  or  speech,  swooning,  such  terrible  weariness  came 
upon  him. 

2.   The  home  of  EumseuS. 

But  Odysseus  fared  forth  from  the  haven  by  the  rough  track, 
up  the  wooded  country  and  through  the  heights,  where  Athene 
had  showed  him  that  he  should  find  the  goodly  swineherd,  who 
cared  most  for  his  substance  of  all  the  thralls  that  goodly  Odysseus 
had  gotten. 

Now  he  found  him  sitting  at  the  front  entry  of  the  house,  where 
his  courtyard  was  builded  high,  in  a  place  with  wide  prospect;  a 
great  court  it  was  and  a  fair,  with  free  range  round  it.  This  the 
swineherd  had  builded  by  himself  for  the  swine  of  his  lord  who  was 
afar,  and  his  mistress  and  the  old  man  Laertes  knew  not  of  it. 
With  stones  dragged  thither  had  he  builded  it,  and  coped  it  with 
a  fence  of  white  thorn,  and  he  had  split  an  oak  to  the  dark  core, 
and  without  he  had  driven  stakes  the  whole  length  thereof  on 
either  side,  set  thick  and  close ;  and  within  the  courtyard  he  made 
twelve  styes  hard  by  one  another  to  be  beds  for  the  swine,  and  in 
each  stye  fifty  grovelling  swine  were  penned,  brood  swine;  but 
the  boars  were  without.  Now  these  were  far  fewer  in  number, 
the  godlike  wooers  minishing  them  at  their  feasts,  for  the  swine- 


250 


ENGLISH   COMPOSITION 


herd  ever  sent  in  the  best  of  all  the  fatted  hogs.  And  their  tale 
was  three  hundred  and  threescore.  And  by  them  always  slept 
four  dogs,  as  fierce  as  wild  beasts,  which  the  swineherd  had  bred, 
a  master  of  men.  Now  he  was  fitting  sandals  to  his  feet,  cutting 
a  good  brown  oxhide,  while  the  rest  of  his  fellows,  three  in  all, 
were  abroad  this  way  and  that,  with  the  droves;  while  the  fourth 
he  had  sent  to  the  city  to  take  a  boar  to  the  proud  wooers,  as 
needs  he  must,  that  they  might  sacrifice  and  satisfy  their  soul  with 
flesh. 

And  of  a  sudden  the  baying  dogs  saw  Odysseus,  and  they  ran 
at  him  yelping,  but  Odysseus  in  his  weariness  sat  him  down,  and 
let  his  staff  fall  from  his  hand.  There  by  his  own  homestead 
would  he  have  suffered  foul  hurt,  but  the  swineherd  with  quick 
feet  hasted  after  them,  and  sped  through  the  outer  door,  and  let 
the  skin  fall  from  his  hand.  And  the  hounds  he  chid  and  drave 
them  this  way  and  that,  with  a  shower  of  stones,  and  he  spake 
unto  his  lord,  saying :  — 

"Old  man,  truly  the  dogs  went  nigh  to  be  the  death  of  thee 
all  of  a  sudden,  so  shouldest  thou  have  brought  shame  upon 
me.  .  .  ." 


THE    CALTON    HILL  1 

The  east  of  new  Edinburgh  is  guarded  by  a  craggy  hill,  of  no 
great  elevation,  which  the  town  embraces.  The  old  London  road 
runs  on  one  side  of  it;  while  the  New  Approach,  leaving  it  on  the 
other  hand,  completes  the  circuit.  You  mount  by  stairs  in  a  cut- 
ting of  the  rock  to  find  yourself  in  a  field  of  monuments.  Dugald 
Stewart  has  the  honours  of  situation  and  architecture;  Burns  is 
memorialised  lower  down  upon  a  spur;  Lord  Nelson,  as  befits  a 
sailor,  gives  his  name  to  the  topgallant  of  the  Calton  Hill.  This 
latter  erection  has  been  differently  and  yet,  in  both  cases,  aptly 
compared  to  a  telescope  and  a  butter-churn;  comparisons  apart, 
it  ranks  among  the  vilest  of  men's  handiworks.  But  the  chief 
feature  is  an  unfinished  range  of  columns,  "the  Modern  Ruin" 

1  Reprinted,  by  the  kind  permission  of  the  publishers,  from  the  complete 
edition  of  R.  L.  Stevenson:  Charles  Scribner's  Sons,  New  York. 


DESCRIPTION  251 

as  it  has  been  called,  an  imposing  object  from  far  and  near,  and 
giving  Edinburgh,  even  from  the  sea,  that  false  air  of  a  Modern 
Athens  which  has  earned  for  her  so  many  slighting  speeches.  It 
was  meant  to  be  a  National  Monument;  and  its  present  state 
is  a  very  suitable  monument  to  certain  national  characteristics. 
The  old  Observatory  —  a  quaint  brown  building  on  the  edge  of 
the  steep  —  and  the  new  Observatory  —  a  classical  edifice  with 
a  dome  —  occupy  the  central  portion  of  the  summit.  All  these 
are  scattered  on  a  green  turf,  browsed  over  by  some  sheep. 

Of  all  places  for  a  view,  this  Gallon  Hill  is  perhaps  the  best; 
since  you  can  see  the  Castle,  which  you  lose  from  the  Castle,  and 
Arthur's  Seat,  which  you  cannot  see  from  Arthur's  Seat.  It  is 
the  place  to  stroll  on  one  of  those  days  of  sunshine  and  east  wind 
which  are  so  common  in  our  more  than  temperate  summer.  The 
breeze  comes  off  the  sea,  with  a  little  of  the  freshness,  and  that 
touch  of  chill,  peculiar  to  the  quarter,  which  is  delightful  to  certain 
very  ruddy  organisations  and  greatly  the  reverse  to  the  majority 
of  mankind.  It  brings  with  it  a  faint,  floating  haze,  a  cunning 
decolouriser,  although  not  thick  enough  to  obscure  outlines  near 
at  hand.  But  the  haze  lies  more  thickly  to  windward  at  the  far 
end  of  Musselburgh  Bay;  and  over  the  Links  of  Aberlady  and 
Berwick  Law  and  the  hump  of  the  Bass  Rock  it  assumes  the  aspect 
of  a  bank  of  thin  sea  fog. 

Immediately  underneath  upon  the  south,  you  command  the 
yards  of  the  High  School,  and  the  towers  and  courts  of  the  new  Jail 
—  a  large  place,  castellated  to  the  extent  of  folly,  standing  by 
itself  on  the  edge  of  a  steep  cliff,  and  often  joyfully  hailed  by 
tourists  as  the  Castle.  In  the  one,  you  may  perhaps  see  female 
prisoners  taking  exercise  like  a  string  of  nuns ;  in  the  other,  school- 
boys running  at  play  and  their  shadows  keeping  step  with  them. 
From  the  bottom  of  the  valley,  a  gigantic  chimney  rises  almost  to 
the  level  of  the  eye,  a  taller  and  a  shapelier  edifice  than  Nelson's 
Monument.  Look  a  little  farther,  and  there  is  Holyrood  Palace, 
with  its  Gothic  frontal  and  ruined  abbey,  and  the  red  sentry  pacing 
smartly  to  and  fro  before  the  door  like  a  mechanical  figure  in  a 
panorama.  By  way  of  an  outpost,  you  can  single  out  the  little 
peak-roofed  lodge,  over  which  Rizzio's  murderers  made  their 
escape  and  where  Queen  Mary  herself,  according  to  gossip,  bathed 


252  EXGLISH   COMPOSITION 

in  white  wine  to  entertain  her  loveliness.  Behind  and  overhead, 
lie  the  Queen's  Park,  from  Muschat's  Cairn  to  Dumbiedykes, 
St.  Margaret's  Loch,  and  the  long  wTall  of  Salisbury  Crags:  and 
thence,  by  knoll  and  rocky  bulwark  and  precipitous  slope,  the  eye 
rises  to  the  top  of  Arthur's  Seat,  a  hill  for  magnitude,  a  mountain 
in  virtue  of  its  bold  design.  This  upon  your  left.  Upon  the 
right,  the  roofs  and  spires  of  the  Old  Town  climb  one  upon  another 
to  where  the  citadel  prints  its  broad  bulk  and  jagged  crown  of  bas- 
tions on  the  western  sky.  Perhaps  it  is  now  one  in  the  afternoon ; 
and  at  the  same  instant  of  time,  a  ball  rises  to  the  summit  of 
Nelson's  flag-staff  close  at  hand,  and,  far  away,  a  puff  of  smoke 
followed  by  a  report  bursts  from  the  half-moon  battery  at  the 
Castle.  This  is  the  time-gun  by  which  people  set  their  watches, 
as  far  as  the  sea-coast  or  in  hill  farms  upon  the  Pentlands.  To 
complete  the  view,  the  eye  enfilades  Princes  Street,  black  with 
traffic,  and  has  a  broad  look  over  the  valley  between  the  Old 
Town  and  the  New :  here,  full  of  railway  trains  and  stepped  over 
by  the  high  North  Bridge  upon  its  many  columns,  and  there,  green 
with  trees  and  gardens. 

On  the  North,  the  Calton  Hill  is  neither  so  abrupt  in  itself  nor 
has  it  so  exceptional  an  outlook ;  and  yet  even  here  it  commands 
a  striking  prospect.  A  gully  separates  it  from  the  New  Town. 
This  is  Greenside,  where  witches  were  burned  and  tournaments 
held  in  former  days.  Down  that  almost  precipitous  bank,  Both- 
well  launched  his  horse,  and  so  first,  as  they  say,  attracted  the 
bright  eyes  of  Mary.  It  is  now  tesselated  with  sheets  and  blankets 
out  to  dry,  and  the  sound  of  people  beating  carpets  is  rarely  absent. 
Beyond  all  this,  the  suburbs  run  out  to  Leith;  Leith  camps  on 
the  seaside  with  her  forest  of  masts ;  Leith  roads  are  full  of  ships 
at  anchor;  the  sun  picks  out  the  white  pharos  upon  Inchkeith 
Island;  the  Firth  extends  on  either  hand  from  the  Ferry  to  the 
May ;  the  towns  of  Fif eshire  sit,  each  in  its  bank  of  blowing  smoke, 
along  the  opposite  coast;  and  the  hills  inclose  the  view,  except  to 
the  farthest  east,  where  the  haze  of  the  horizon  rests  upon  the  open 
sea.  There  lies  the  road  to  Norway ;  a  dear  road  for  Sir  Patrick 
Spens  and  his  Scots  Lords ;  and  yonder  smoke  on  the  hither  side 
of  Largo  Law  is  Aberdour,  from  whence  they  sailed  to  seek  a 
queen  for  Scotland. 


DESCRIPTION  253 

"O  lang,  lang,  may  the  ladies  sit, 
Wi'  their  fans  into  their  hand, 
Or  ere  they  see  Sir  Patrick  Spens 
Come  sailing  to  the  land!" 

The  sight  of  the  sea,  even  from  a  city,  will  bring  thoughts  of 
storm  and  sea  disaster.  The  sailors'  wives  of  Leith  and  the  fisher- 
women  of  Cockenzie,  not  sitting  languorously  with  fans,  but  crowd- 
ing to  the  tail  of  the  harbour  with  a  shawl  about  their  ears,  may 
still  look  vainly  for  brave  Scotsmen  who  will  return  no  more,  or 
boats  that  have  gone  on  their  last  fishing.  Since  Sir  Patrick 
sailed  from  Aberdour,  what  a  multitude  have  gone  down  in  the 
North  Sea!  Yonder  is  Auldhame,  where  the  London  smack 
went  ashore  and  wreckers  cut  the  rings  from  ladies'  fingers;  and 
a  few  miles  round  Fife  Ness  is  the  fatal  Inchcape,  now  a  star  of 
guidance;  and  the  lee  shore  to  the  east  of  the  Inchcape,  is  that 
Forfarshire  coast  where  Mucklebackit  sorrowed  for  his  son. 

These  are  the  main  features  of  the  scene  roughly  sketched. 
How  they  are  all  tilted  by  the  inclination  of  the  ground,  how  each 
stands  out  in  delicate  relief  against  the  rest,  what  manifold  detail, 
and  play  of  sun  and  shadow,  animate  and  accentuate  the  picture, 
is  a  matter  for  a  person  on  the  spot,  and  turning  swiftly  on  his  heels, 
to  grasp  and  bind  together  in  one  comprehensive  look.  It  is 
the  character  of  such  a  prospect,  to  be  full  of  change  and  of  things 
moving.  The  multiplicity  embarrasses  the  eye;  and  the  mind, 
among  so  much,  suffers  itself  to  grow  absorbed  with  single  points. 
You  mark  a  tree  in  a  hedgerow,  or  follow  a  cart  along  a  country 
road.  You  turn  to  the  city,  and  see  children,  dwarfed  by  distance 
into  pigmies,  at  play  about  suburban  doorsteps;  you  have  a 
glimpse  upon  a  thoroughfare  where  people  are  densely  moving; 
you  note  ridge  after  ridge  of  chimney-stacks  running  downhill 
one  behind  another,  and  church  spires  rising  bravely  from  the  sea 
of  roofs.  At  one  of  the  innumerable  windows,  you  watch  a 
figure  moving ;  on  one  of  the  multitude  of  roofs,  you  watch  clam- 
bering chimney-sweeps.  The  wind  takes  a  run  and  scatters  the 
smoke;  bells  are  heard,  far  and  near,  faint  and  loud,  to  tell  the 
hour;  or  perhaps  a  bird  goes  dipping  evenly  over  the  housetops, 
like  a  gull  across  the  waves.  And  here  you  are  in  the  meantime, 


254 


ENGLISH   COMPOSITION 


on  this  pastoral  hillside,  among  nibbling  sheep  and  looked  upon  by 
monumental  buildings. 

Return  thither  on  some  clear,  dark,  moonless  night,  with  a  ring 
of  frost  in  the  air,  and  only  a  star  or  two  set  sparsely  in  the  vault 
of  heaven ;  and  you  will  find  a  sight  as  stimulating  as  the  hoariest 
summit  of  the  Alps.  The  solitude  seems  perfect;  the  patient 
astronomer,  flat  on  his  back  under  the  Observatory  dome  and 
spying  heaven's  secrets,  is  your  only  neighbour;  and  yet  from  all 
around  you  there  come  up  the  dull  hum  of  the  city,  the  tramp  of 
countless  people  marching  out  of  time,  the  rattle  of  carriages  and 
the  continuous  keen  jingle  of  the  tramway  bells.  An  hour  or  so 
before,  the  gas  was  turned  on;  lamplighters  scoured  the  city; 
in  every  house,  from  kitchen  to  attic,  the  windows  kindled  and 
gleamed  forth  into  the  dusk.  And  so  now,  although  the  town  lies 
blue  and  darkling  on  her  hills,  innumerable  spots  of  the  bright 
element  shine  far  and  near  along  the  pavements  and  upon  the 
high  facades.  Moving  lights  of  the  railway  pass  and  re-pass 
below  the  stationary  lights  upon  the  bridge.  Lights  burn  in  the 
Jail.  Lights  burn  high  up  in  the  tall  lands  and  on  the  Castle 
turrets,  they  burn  low  down  in  Greenside  or  along  the  Park.  They 
run  out  one  beyond  another  into  the  dark  country.  They  walk 
in  a  procession  down  to  Leith,  and  shine  singly  far  along  Leith 
Pier.  Thus,  the  plan  of  the  city  and  her  suburbs  is  mapped  out 
upon  the  ground  of  blackness,  as  when  a  child  pricks  a  drawing 
full  of  pin-holes  and  exposes  it  before  a  candle;  not  the  darkest 
night  of  winter  can  conceal  her  high  station  and  fanciful  design; 
every  evening  in  the  year  she  proceeds  to  illuminate  herself  in 
honour  of  her  own  beauty ;  and  as  if  to  complete  the  scheme  —  or 
rather  as  if  some  prodigal  Pharaoh  were  beginning  to  extend  to 
the  adjacent  sea  and  country  —  halfway  over  to  Fife,  there  is  an 
outpost  of  light  upon  Inchkeith,  and  far  to  sea-ward,  yet  another 
on  the  May. 

And  while  you  are  looking,  across  upon  the  Castle  Hill,  the 
drums  and  bugles  begin  to  recall  the  scattered  garrison;  the 
air  thrills  with  the  sound;  the  bugles  sing  aloud;  and  the  last 
rising  flourish  mounts  and  melts  into  the  darkness  like  a  star ;  a 
martial  swan-song,  fitly  rounding  in  the  labours  of  the  day. 
—  STEVENSON  :  Picturesque  Xotes  on  Edinburgh. 


DESCRIPTION  255 

ROME    FROM  THE    TARPEIAN 

On  the  left  of  the  Piazza  of  the  Campidoglio,  as  you  face  city- 
ward, and  at  the  head  of  the  long  and  stately  flight  of  steps  de- 
scending from  the  Capitoline  Hill  to  the  level  of  lower  Rome,  there 
is  a  narrow  lane  or  passage.  Into  this  the  party  of  our  friends  now 
turned.  The  path  ascended  a  little,  and  ran  along  under  the  walls 
of  a  palace,  but  soon  passed  through  a  gateway,  and  terminated 
in  a  small  paved  courtyard.  It  was  bordered  by  a  low  parapet. 

The  spot,  for  some  reason  or  other,  impressed  them  as  exceed- 
ingly lonely.  On  one  side  was  the  great  height  of  the  palace, 
with  the  moonshine  falling  over  it,  and  showing  all  the  windows 
barred  and  shuttered.  Not  a  human  eye  could  look  down  into  the 
little  courtyard,  even  if  the  seemingly  deserted  palace  had  a  tenant. 
On  all  other  sides  of  its  narrow  compass  there  was  nothing  but 
the  parapet,  which  as  it  now  appeared  was  built  right  on  the  edge 
of  a  steep  precipice.  Gazing  from  its  imminent  brow,  the  party 
beheld  a  crowded  confusion  of  roofs  spreading  over  the  whole 
space  between  them  and  the  line  of  hills  that  lay  beyond  the  Tiber. 
A  long,  misty  wreath,  just  dense  enough  to  catch  a  little  of  the 
moonshine,  floated  above  the  houses,  midway  towards  the  hilly 
line,  and  showed  the  course  of  the  unseen  river.  Far  away  on 
the  right,  the  moon  gleamed  on  the  dome  of  St.  Peter's  as  well  as 
on  many  lesser  and  nearer  domes. 

"  What  a  beautiful  view  of  the  city ! "  exclaimed  Hilda ;  "  and 
I  never  saw  Rome  from  this  point  before." 

"It  ought  to  afford  a  good  prospect,"  said  the  sculptor;  "for 
it  was  from  this  point  —  at  least  we  are  at  liberty  to  think  so, 
if  we  choose  —  that  many  a  famous  Roman  caught  his  last  glimpse 
of  his  native  city,  and  of  all  other  earthly  things.  This  is  one  of 
the  sides  of  the  Tarpeian  Rock.  Look  over  the  parapet,  and  see 
what  a  sheer  tumble  there  might  still  be  for  a  traitor,  in  spite  of 
the  thirty  feet  of  soil  that  have  accumulated  at  the  foot  of  the 
precipice." 

They  all  bent  over,  and  saw  that  the  cliff  fell  perpendicularly 
downward  to  about  the  depth,  or  rather  more,  at  which  the  tall 
palace  rose  in  height  above  their  heads.  Not  that  it  was  still  the 
natural,  shaggy  front  of  the  original  precipice;  for  it  appeared  to 
be  cased  in  ancient  stone-work,  through  which  the  primeval  rock 


256  ENGLISH   COMPOSITION 

showed  its  face  here  and  there  grimly  and  doubtfully.  Mosses 
grew  on  the  slight  projections,  and  little  shrubs  sprouted  out  of 
the  crevices,  but  could  not  much  soften  the  stern  aspect  of  the 
cliff.  Brightly  as  the  Italian  moonlight  fell  a-down  the  height, 
it  scarcely  showed  what  portion  of  it  was  man's  work,  and  what 
was  nature's,  but  left  it  all  in  very  much  the  same  kind  of  ambiguity 
and  half-knowledge  in  which  antiquarians  generally  leave  the 
identity  of  Roman  remains. 

The  roofs  of  some  poor-looking  houses,  which  had  been  built 
against  the  base  and  sides  of  the  cliff,  rose  nearly  midway  to  the 
top;  but  from  an  angle  of  the  parapet  there  was  a  precipitous 
plunge  straight  downward  into  a  stone-paved  court. 

—  HAWTHORNE  :    The  Marble  Faun. 


A    DESOLATE    SCENE    IN    SPAIN 

From  Estremoz  to  Elvas  the  distance  is  six  leagues.  I  started 
at  nine  next  morning.  The  first  part  of  the  way  lay  through  an 
enclosed  country,  but  we  soon  emerged  upon  wild,  bleak  downs, 
over  which  the  wind,  which  still  pursued  us,  howled  most  mourn- 
fully. We  met  no  one  on  the  route,  and  the  scene  was  desolate  in 
the  extreme.  The  heaven  was  of  a  dark  gray,  through  which  no 
glimpse  of  the  sun  was  to  be  perceived.  Before  us,  at  a  great 
distance,  on  an  elevated  ground,  rose  a  tower,  the  only  object 
which  broke  the  monotony  of  the  waste.  In  about  two  hours 
from  the  time  when  we  first  discovered  it,  we  reached  the  fountain 
at  the  foot  of  the  hill  on  which  it  stood ;  the  water,  which  gushed 
into  a  long  stone  trough,  was  beautifully  clear  and  transparent, 
and  we  stopped  here  to  water  the  animals. 

Having  dismounted,  I  left  the  guide,  and  proceeded  to  ascend 
the  hill  on  which  the  tower  stood.  Though  the  ascent  was  very 
gentle,  I  did  not  accomplish  it  without  difficulty.  The  ground 
was  covered  with  sharp  stones,  which  in  two  or  three  instances 
cut  through  my  boots  and  wounded  my  feet;  and  the  distance 
was  much  greater  than  I  had  expected.  When  I  at  last  arrived  at 
the  ruin,  for  such  it  was,  I  found  it  had  been  one  of  those  watch- 
towers  or  small  fortresses  called  in  Portuguese  atalaias.  It  was 
square,  and  surrounded  by  a  wall,  broken  down  in  many  places. 


DESCRIPTION 


257 


The  tower  itself  had  no  door,  the  lower  part  being  of  solid  stone- 
work; but  on  one  side  were  crevices  at  intervals  between  the 
stones,  for  the  purpose  of  placing  the  feet,  and  up  this  rude  stair- 
case I  climbed  to  a  small  apartment,  about  five  feet  square,  from 
which  the  top  had  fallen.  It  commanded  an  extensive  view 
from  all  sides,  and  had  evidently  been  built  for  the  accommodation 
of  those  whose  business  it  was  to  keep  watch  on  the  frontier,  and 
at  the  appearance  of  an  enemy  to  alarm  the  country  by  signals  — 
probably  by  a  fire.  Resolute  men  might  have  defended  themselves 
in  this  little  fastness  against  many  assailants,  who  must  have  been 
completely  exposed  to  their  arrows  or  musketry  in  the  ascent. 

Being  about  to  leave  the  place,  I  heard  a  strange  cry  behind  a 
part  of  the  wall  which  I  had  not  visited;  and  hastening  thither, 
I  found  a  miserable  object  in  rags  seated  upon  a  stone.  It  was  a 
maniac  —  a  man  about  thirty  years  of  age,  and  I  believe  deaf  and 
dumb.  There  he  sat,  gibbering  and  mowing,  and  distorting  his 
wild  features  into  various  dreadful  appearances.  There  wanted 
nothing  but  this  object  to  render  the  scene  complete;  banditti 
amongst  such  melancholy  desolation  would  have  been  by  no  means 
so  much  in  keeping.  But  the  maniac  on  his  stone,  in  the  rear  of 
the  wind-beaten  ruin  over-looking  the  blasted  heath,  above  which 
scowled  the  leaden  heaven,  presented  such  a  picture  of  gloom 
and  misery  as  I  believe  neither  painter  nor  poet  ever  conceived 
in  the  saddest  of  their  musings.  This  is  not  the  first  instance  in 
which  it  has  been  my  lot  to  verify  the  wisdom  of  the  saying  that 
truth  is  sometimes  wilder  than  fiction. 

—  GEORGE  BORROW  :    The  Bible  in  Spain. 

LONDON    BRIDGE 

A  strange  kind  of  bridge  it  was;  huge  and  massive,  and  seem- 
ingly of  great  antiquity.  It  had  an  arched  back,  like  that  of  a 
hog,  a  high  balustrade,  and  at  either  side,  at  intervals,  were  stone 
bowers  bulking  over  the  river,  but  open  on  the  other  side,  and 
furnished  with  a  semicircular  bench.  Though  the  bridge  was 
wide  —  very  wide  —  it  was  all  too  narrow  for  the  concourse  upon 
it.  Thousands  of  human  beings  were  pouring  over  the  bridge. 
But  what  chiefly  struck  my  attention  was  a  double  row  of  carts 


258  ENGLISH  COMPOSITION 

and  wagons,  the  generality  drawn  by  horses  as  large  as  elephants, 
each  row  striving  hard  in  a  different  direction,  and  not  unfre- 
quently  brought  to  a  standstill.  Oh,  the  cracking  of  whips,  the 
shouts  and  oaths  of  the  carters,  and  the  grating  of  wheels  upon 
the  enormous  stones  that  formed  the  pavement !  In  fact,  there  was 
a  wild  hurly-burly  upon  the  bridge,  which  nearly  deafened  me. 
But  if  upon  the  bridge  there  was  a  confusion,  below  it  there  was 
a  confusion  ten  times  confounded.  The  tide,  which  was  fast 
ebbing,  obstructed  by  the  immense  piers  of  the  old  bridge,  poured 
beneath  the  arches  with  a  fall  of  several  feet,  forming  in  the  river 
below  as  many  whirlpools  as  there  were  arches.  Truly  tremen- 
dous was  the  roar  of  the  descending  waters,  and  the  bellow  of 
the  tremendous  gulfs,  which  swallowed  them  for  a  time,  and  then 
cast  them  forth,  foaming  and  frothing  from  their  horrid  wombs. 
Slowly  advancing  along  the  bridge,  I  came  to  the  highest  point, 
and  there  I  stood  still,  close  beside  one  of  the  stone  bowers,  in 
which,  beside  a  fruitstall,  sat  an  old  woman,  with  a  pan  of  char- 
coal at  her  feet,  and  a  book  in  her  hand,  in  which  she  appeared 
to  be  reading  intently.  There  I  stood,  just  above  the  principal 
arch,  looking  through  the  balustrade  at  the  scene  that  presented 
itself  —  and  such  a  scene !  Towards  the  left  bank  of  the  river, 
a  forest  of  masts,  thick  and  close,  as  far  as  the  eye  could  reach ; 
spacious  wharfs,  surmounted  with  gigantic  edifices;  and,  far 
away,  Caesar's  Castle,  with  its  White  Tower.  To  the  right 
another  forest  of  masts,  and  a  maze  of  building,  from  which,  here 
and  there,  shot  up  to  the  sky  chimneys  taller  than  Cleopatra's 
Needle,  vomiting  forth  huge  wreaths  of  that  black  smoke  which 
forms  the  canopy  —  occasionally  a  gorgeous  one  —  of  the  more 
than  Babel  City.  Stretching  before  me,  the  troubled  breast  of 
the  mighty  river,  and,  immediately  below,  the  main  whirlpool  of 
the  Thames  —  the  Maelstrom  of  the  bulwarks  of  the  middle  arch 
—  a  grisly  pool,  which,  with  its  superabundance  of  horror,  fascina- 
ated  me.  Who  knows  but  I  should  have  leapt  into  its  depths  —  I 
have  heard  of  such  things  —  but  for  a  rather  startling  occurrence 
which  broke  the  spell.  As  I  stood  upon  the  bridge,  gazing  into 
the  jaws  of  the  pool,  a  small  boat  shot  suddenly  through  the  arch 
beneath  my  feet.  There  were  three  persons  in  it;  an  oarsman 
in  the  middle  whilst  a  man  and  a  woman  sat  at  the  stern. 


DESCRIPTION  259 

I  shall  never  forget  the  thrill  of  horror  which  went  through  me 
at  this  sudden  apparition.  What !  a  boat  —  a  small  boat  — 
passing  beneath  that  arch  into  yonder  roaring  gulf?  Yes,  yes, 
down  through  that  awful  waterway,  with  more  than  the  swiftness 
of  an  arrow,  shot  the  boat,  or  skiff,  right  into  the  jaws  of  the  pool. 
A  monstrous  breaker  curls  over  the  prow  —  there  is  no  hope ;  the 
boat  is  swamped,  and  all  drowned  in  that  strangling  vortex. 
No !  the  boat,  which  appeared  to  have  the  buoyancy  of  a  feather, 
skipped  over  the  threatening  horror,  and  the  next  moment  was 
out  of  danger,  the  boatman  —  a  true  boatman  of  Cockaigne  that  — 
elevating  one  of  his  sculls  in  sign  of  triumph,  the  man  hallooing, 
and  the  woman,  a  true  Englishwoman  that  —  of  a  certain  class  — 
waving  her  shawl.  Whether  any  one  observed  them  save  myself, 
or  whether  the  feat  was  a  common  one  I  know  not ;  but  nobody 
appeared  to  take  any  notice  of  them.  As  for  myself,  I  was  so 
excited,  that  I  strove  to  clamber  up  the  balustrade  of  the  bridge, 
in  order  to  obtain  a  better  view  of  the  daring  adventurers.  Before 
I  could  accomplish  my  design,  however,  I  felt  myself  seized  by 
the  body,  and,  turning  my  head,  perceived  the  old  fruitwoman, 
who  was  clinging  to  me. 

"  Nay,  dear !  don't  —  don't ! "  said  she.     "  Don't  fling  yourself 
over  —  perhaps  you  may  have  better  luck  next  time!" 

—  GEORGE  BORROW:  Lavengro. 


THE  APPROACH   OF   AUTUMN 

Now  came  fulfillment  of  the  year's  desire: 

The  fall  wheat,  colored  by  the  August  fire, 

Grew  heavy-headed,  dreading  its  decay, 

And  blacker  grew  the  elm  trees  day  by  day. 

About  the  edges  of  the  yellow  corn 

And  o'er  the  gardens  grown  somewhat  outworn, 

The  bees  went  hurrying  to  fill  up  their  store. 

The  apple  boughs  bent  over  more  and  more; 

With  peach  and  apricot  the  garden  wall 

Was  odorous,  and  the  pears  began  to  fall 

From  off  the  high  tree  with  each  freshening  breeze. 

—  WM.  MORRIS:   The  Earthly  Paradise. 


26o  ENGLISH   COMPOSITION 

NETLEY    ABBEY 

How  shall  I  describe  Netley  to  you  ?  I  can  only  tell  you  that 
it  is  the  spot  in  the  world  which  I  and  Mr.  Chute  wish.  The 
ruins  are  vast  and  retain  fragments  of  beautiful  fretted  roofs,  pen- 
dant in  the  air,  with  all  variety  of  Gothic  patterns  of  windows 
topped  round  and  round  with  ivy.  Many  trees  have  sprouted  up 
among  the  walls,  and  only  want  to  be  increased  by  cypresses. 
A  hill  rises  above  the  Abbey,  enriched  with  wood.  The  fort,  in 
which  we  would  build  a  tower  for  habitation,  remains  with  two 
small  platforms.  This  little  castle  is  buried  from  the  Abbey,  in 
the  very  center  of  a  wood,  on  a  wood  hill.  On  each  side  breaks 
in  the  view  of  Southampton  Sea,  deep,  blue,  glistening  with  silver 
and  vessels.  In  short,  they  are  not  the  ruins  of  Netley,  but  of 
Paradise.  Oh,  the  purpled  abbots !  What  a  spot  they  had 
chosen  to  slumber  in !  The  scene  is  so  beautifully  tranquil,  yet 
so  lively  that  they  seem  only  to  have  retired  into  the  world. 

—  HORACE  WALPOLE  :  Letters. 

A   HOT   NIGHT 

It  was  a  pitchy-black  night,  as  stifling  as  a  June  night  can  be, 
and  the  loo,  the  red-hot  wind  from  the  westward,  was  booming 
among  the  tinder-dry  trees  and  pretending  that  the  rain  was  on 
its  heels.  Now  and  again  a  spot  of  almost  boiling  water  would 
fall  on  the  dust  with  the  flop  of  a  frog,  but  all  our  weary  world 
knew  that  was  only  pretense.  It  was  a  shade  cooler  in  the  press 
room  than  the  office,  so  I  sat  there,  while  the  type  ticked  and 
clicked,  and  the  night-jars  hooted  at  the  windows,  and  the  all  but 
naked  compositors  wiped  the  sweat  from  their  foreheads,  and 
called  for  water.  The  thing  that  was  keeping  us  back,  what- 
ever it  was,  would  not  come  off,  though  the  loo  dropped  and  the 
last  type  was  set,  and  the  whole  round  earth  stood  still  in  the 
choking  heat,  with  its  finger  on  its  lip,  to  wait  the  event.  I 
drowsed,  and  wondered  whether  the  telegraph  was  a  blessing, 
and  whether  this  dying  man,  or  struggling  people,  might  be  aware 
of  the  inconvenience  the  delay  was  causing.  There  was  no  special 
reason  beyond  the  heat  and  worry  to  make  tension,  but,  as  the 
clock-hands  crept  up  to  three  o'clock  and  the  machines  spun  their 
fly-wheels  two  and  three  times  to  see  that  all  was  in  order,  before 


DESCRIPTION  261 

I  said  the  word  that  would  set  them  off,  I  could  have   shrieked 
aloud.  —  RUDYARD  KIPLING  :   The  Man  Who  Would,  Be  King. 

THE   ISLAND    OF    GUERNSEY 

Granit  au  sud,  sable  au  nord ;  ici  des  escarpements,  lades  dunes ; 
un  plan  incline  de  prairie  avec  des  ondulations  de  collines  et  des 
reliefs  de  roches ;  pour  frange  a  ce  tapis  vert  fronce  de  plis  1'ecume 
de  1'ocean ;  le  long  de  la  cote,  des  batteries  rasantes,  des  tours  a 
meurtrieres,  de  distance  en  distance ;  sur  toute  la  plage  basse,  un 
parapet  massif,  coupe  de  creneaux  et  d'escaliers,  que  la  sable 
envahit,  et  qu'attaque  le  flot,  unique  assiegeant  a  craindre;  des 
moulins  demates  par  les  tempetes;  quelques-uns,  au  Valle,  a  la 
Ville-au  Roi,  a  Saint- Pierre- Port,  a  Torteval,  tournant  encore; 
dans  la  falaise,  des  ancrages;  dans  les  dunes,  des  troupeaux;  le 
chien  du  berger  et  le  chien  du  toucheur  de  bceufs  en  quete  et  en 
travail;  les  petites  charrettes  des  marchands  de  la  ville  galopant 
dans  les  chemins  creux;  souvent  des  maisons  noires,  goudron- 
nees  a  Pouest  a  cause  des  pluies;  coqs,  poules,  fumiers;  partout 
des  murs  cyclopeens;  ceux  de  1'ancien  havre,  malheureusement 
detruits,  etaient  admirable  avec  leurs  blocs  informes,  leurs  poteaux 
puissants  et  leurs  lourdes  chaines;  des  fermes  a  encadrements  de 
futaies;  les  champs  mures  a  hauteur  d'appui  avec  des  cordons  de 
pierre  seche  dessinant  sur  les  plaines  un  bizarre  e"chiquier;  ca 
et  la,  un  rempart  autour  d'un  chardon,  des  chaumieres  en  granit, 
des  huttes  casemates,  des  cabanes  a  defier  le  boulet;  parfois,  dans 
le  lieu  le  plus  sauvage,  un  petit  batiment  neuf,  surmonte  d'une 
cloche,  qui  est  une  ecole ;  deux  ou  trois  ruisseaux  dans  des  fonds  de 
pres ;  ormes  et  cheries ;  un  lys  fait  expres,  qui  n'est  que  la,  Guern- 
sey lily;  dans  la  saison  des  "grand  labours,"  des  charrues  a 
huit  chevaux;  devant  les  maisons,  des  larges  meules  de  foin 
portees  sur  un  cercle  de  bornes  de  pierre ;  des  tas  d'ajoncs  dpineux; 
parfois  des  jardins  de  1'ancien  style  francais,  a  ifs  tailles,  a  buixs 
fagonnes,  a  vases  rocailles,  melds  aux  vergers  et  aux  potagers; 
des  fleurs  d'amateurs  dans  des  enclos  de  paysans;  des  rhodo- 
dendrons parmi  les  pommes  de  terre;  partout  sur  1'herbe  des 
etalages  de  vareche,  couleur  oreille-d'ours ;  dans  les  cimitieres, 
pas  de  croix,  des  larmes  de  pierre  imitant  au  clair  de  lune  des 


262  ENGLISH  COMPOSITION 

Dames  blanches  debout;  dix  clochers  gothiques  sur  1'horizon; 
vieilles  eglises,  dogmes  neufs;  le  rite  protestant  loge  dans  1'archi- 
tecture  catholique;  dans  les  sables  et  sur  les  caps,  la  sombre 
enigme  celtique  eparse  sous  ses  formes  diverses,  menhirs,  peulvens, 
longues  pierres,  pierres  des  fees,  pierres  branlantes,  pierres  son- 
nantes,  galeries,  cromlechs,  dolmens,  pouquelaies ;  toutes  sortes  de 
traces;  apres  les  druides,  les  abbes;  apres  les  abbes,  les  recteurs; 
des  souvenirs  de  chutes  du  ciel ;  a  une  pointe  Lucifer,  au  chateau 
de  Michel- Archange ;  a  1'autre  pointe  Icare,  au  cap  Dicart; 
presque  autant  1'hiver  que  1'ete;  —  voila  Guernsey. 

—  VICTOR  HUGO  :  Les  Travailleurs  de  la  Mer. 

DESCRIPTION   OF  AN  INTERIOR 

The  sun,  meanwhile,  if  not  already  above  the  horizon,  was 
ascending  nearer  and  nearer  to  its  verge.  A  few  clouds,  floating 
high  upward,  caught  some  of  the  earliest  light,  and  threw  down  its 
golden  gleam  on  the  windows  of  all  the  houses  in  the  street,  not 
forgetting  the  House  of  the  Seven  Gables,  which  —  many  such 
sunrises  as  it  had  witnessed  —  looked  cheerfully  at  the  present 
one.  The  reflected  radiance  served  to  show,  pretty  distinctly, 
the  aspect  and  arrangement  of  the  room  which  Hepzibah  entered, 
after  descending  the  stairs.  It  was  a  low-studded  room,  with  a 
beam  across  the  ceiling,  paneled  with  dark  wood,  and  having 
a  large  chimney-piece,  set  round  with  pictured  tiles,  but  now 
closed  by  an  iron  fire-board,  through  which  ran  the  funnel  of  a 
modern  stove.  There  was  a  carpet  on  the  floor,  originally  of  rich 
texture,  but  so  worn  and  faded,  in  these  latter  years,  that  its  once 
brilliant  figure  had  quite  vanished  into  one  indistinguishable  hue. 
In  the  way  of  furniture,  there  were  two  tables:  one,  constructed 
with  perplexing  intricacy  and  exhibiting  as  many  feet  as  a  centi- 
pede; the  other,  most  delicately  wrought,  with  four  long  and 
slender  legs,  so  apparently  frail  that  it  was  almost  incredible 
what  a  length  of  time  the  ancient  tea-table  had  stood  upon  them. 
Half  a  dozen  chairs  stood  about  the  room,  straight  and  stiff,  and 
so  ingeniously  contrived  for  the  discomfort  of  the  human  person, 
that  they  were  irksome  even  to  the  sight,  and  conveyed  the  ugliest 
possible  idea  of  the  state  of  society  to  which  they  could  have  been 


DESCRIPTION  263 

adapted.  One  exception  there  was,  however,  in  a  very  antique 
elbow  chair,  with  a  high  back,  carved  elaborately  in  oak,  and  a 
roomy  depth  within  its  arms,  that  made  up,  by  its  spacious  com- 
prehensiveness, for  the  lack  of  any  of  those  artistic  curves  which 
abound  in  a  modern  chair. 

—  HAWTHORNE:  House  of  Seven  Gables. 

DESCRIPTION   OF   PERSON    FROM    DIFFERENT    POINTS    OF    VIEW 

In  front  of  them,  over  beyond  the  hedge,  the  dusty  road  stretched 
away  across  the  plain ;  behind  them  the  meadow  lands  and  bright 
green  fields  of  tender  young  corn  lay  broadly  in  the  sun,  and  over- 
head spread  the  shade  of  the  cool,  rustling  leaves  of  the  beechen 
tree.  Pleasantly  to  their  nostrils  came  the  tender  fragrance  of  the 
purple  violets  and  wild  thyme  that  grew  within  the  dewy  moisture 
of  the  edge  of  the  little  fountain,  and  pleasantly  came  the  soft 
gurgle  of  the  water;  all  else  was  sunny  silence,  broken  only  now 
and  then  by  the  crow  of  a  distant  cock,  borne  up  to  them  on  the 
wings  of  the  soft  and  gentle  breeze,  or  the  drowsy  drone  of  the 
humble-bee  burrowing  in  the  clover  blossoms  that  grew  in  the 
sun,  or  the  voice  of  the  busy  housewife  in  the  nearest  farmhouse. 
All  was  so  pleasant  and  so  full  of  the  gentle  joy  of  the  bright  May- 
time,  that  for  a  long  time  neither  of  the  three  cared  to  speak,  but 
each  lay  on  his  back,  gazing  up  through  the  trembling  leaves  of 
the  trees  to  the  bright  sky  overhead.  At  last,  Robin,  whose  thoughts 
were  not  quite  so  busy  wool-gathering  as  those  of  the  others,  and 
who  had  been  gazing  around  him  now  and  then,  broke  the  silence. 

"Heyday!"  quoth  he,  "yon  is  a  gayly-feathered  bird,  I  take 
my  vow." 

The  others  looked  and  saw  a  young  man  walking  slowly  down 
the  highway.  Gay  was  he,  indeed,  as  Robin  had  said,  and  a  fine 
figure  he  cut,  for  his  doublet  was  of  scarlet  silk  and  his  stockings 
also ;  a  handsome  sword  hung  by  his  side,  the  embossed  leathern 
scabbard  being  picked  out  with  fine  threads  of  gold ;  his  cap  was 
of  scarlet  velvet,  and  a  broad  feather  hung  down  behind  and  back 
of  one  ear.  His  hair  was  long  and  yellow  and  curled  upon  his 
shoulders,  and  in  his  hand  he  bore  an  early  rose,  which  he  smelt 
at  daintily  now  and  then. 


264  ENGLISH   COMPOSITION 

"By  my  life!"  quoth  Robin  Hood,  laughing,  "saw  ye  e'er  such 
a  pretty  mincing  fellow?" 

"Truly,  his  clothes  have  overmuch  prettiness  for  my  taste," 
quoth  Arthur  a  Bland;  "but,  ne'ertheless,  his  shoulders  are  broad 
and  his  loins  are  narrow;  and  seest  thou,  good  master,  how  that 
his  arms  hang  from  his  body  ?  They  dangle  not  down  like  spindles, 
but  hang  stiff,  and  bend  at  the  elbow.  I  take  my  vow,  there  be 
no  bread  and  milk  limbs  in  those  fine  clothes,  but  stiff  joints  and 
tough  thews." 

"Methinks  thou  art  right,  friend  Arthur,"  said  Little  John. 
"  I  do  verily  think  that  yon  is  no  such  rose-leaf  and  whipped-cream 
gallant  as  he  would  have  one  take  him  to  be." 

"  Pah ! "  quoth  Robin  Hood,  "  the  sight  of  such  a  fellow  doth 
put  a  nasty  taste  into  my  mouth !  Look  how  he  doth  hold  that 
fair  flower  betwixt  his  thumb  and  finger,  as  he  would  say,  '  Good 
rose,  I  like  thee  not  so  ill  but  I  can  bear  thy  odor  for  a  little  while.' 
I  take  it  ye  are  both  wrong,  and  verily  believe  that  were  a  furious 
mouse  to  run  across  his  path,  he  would  cry,  'La!'  or  'Alack-a- 
day ! '  and  fall  straightway  into  a  swoon.  I  wonder  who  he  may  be. " 
—  HOWARD  PYLE:  Robin  Hood. 

SKETCHES    OF    CHARACTER    AND    PERSONALITY 

The  Faun  is  the  marble  image  of  a  young  man,  leaning  his  right 
arm  on  the  trunk  or  stump  of  a  tree;  one  hand  hangs  carelessly 
by  his  side ;  in  the  other  he  holds  the  fragment  of  a  pipe,  or  some 
such  sylvan  instrument  of  music.  His  only  garment  —  a  lion's 
skin,  with  the  claws  upon  his  shoulder  —  falls  halfway  down  his 
back,  leaving  the  limbs  and  the  entire  front  of  the  figure  nude. 
The  form,  thus  displayed,  is  marvellously  graceful,  but  has  a  fuller 
and  more  rounded  outline,  more  flesh,  and  less  of  heroic  muscle, 
than  the  old  sculptors  were  wont  to  assign  to  their  types  of  mas- 
culine beauty.  The  character  of  the  face  corresponds  with  the 
figure;  it  is  most  agreeable  in  outline  and  feature,  but  rounded 
and  somewhat  voluptuously  developed,  especially  about  the  throat 
and  chin;  the  nose  is  almost  straight,  but  very  slightly  curves  in- 
ward, thereby  acquiring  an  indescribable  charm  of  geniality  and 
humor.  The  mouth,  with  its  full  yet  delicate  lips,  seems  so  nearly 
to  smile  outright,  that  it  calls  forth  a  responsive  smile.  The 


DESCRIPTION  265 

whole  statue  —  unlike  anything  else  that  ever  was  wrought  in  that 
severe  material  of  marble  —  conveys  the  idea  of  an  amiable  and 
sensual  creature,  easy,  mirthful,  apt  for  jollity,  yet  not  incapable 
of  being  touched  by  pathos.  It  is  impossible  to  gaze  long  at  this 
stone  image  without  conceiving  a  kindly  sentiment  towards  it,  as  if 
its  substance  were  warm  to  the  touch,  and  imbued  with  actual 
life.  It  comes  very  close  to  some  of  our  pleasantest  sympathies. 
—  HAWTHORNE  :  The  Marble  Faun. 

Short  descriptive  passages  from  Sir  Walter  Scott's  Guy  Man- 
nering :  — 

On  one  of  these  occasions  he  (Dominie  Abel  Sampson)  presented 
for  the  first  time  to  Mannering  his  tall,  gaunt,  awkward,  bony 
figure,  attired  in  a  threadbare  suit  of  black,  with  a  colored  hand- 
kerchief, not  over-clean,  about  his  sinewy,  scraggy  neck,  and  his 
nether  person  arrayed  in  gray  breeches,  dark-blue  stockings, 
clouted  shoes,  and  small  copper  buckles. 

Her  (Meg  Merrilies')  appearance  made  Mannering  start.  She 
was  full  six  feet  high,  wore  a  man's  greatcoat  over  the  rest  of  her 
dress,  had  in  her  hand  a  goodly  sloethorn  cudgel,  and  in  all  points 
of  equipment,  except  her  petticoats,  seemed  rather  masculine  than 
feminine.  Her  dark  elf-locks  shot  out  like  the  snakes  of  the 
Gorgon  between  an  old-fashioned  bonnet  called  a  bongrace, 
heightening  the  singular  effect  of  her  strong  and  weather-beaten 
features,  which  they  partly  shadowed,  while  her  eye  had  a  wild 
roll  that  indicated  something  like  real  or  affected  insanity. 

The  first  object  which  caught  his  eye  in  the  kitchen  was  a  tall, 
stout,  country-looking  man,  in  a  large  jockey  greatcoat,  the 
owner  of  the  horse  which  stood  in  the  shed,  who  was  busy  dis- 
cussing huge  slices  of  cold  boiled  beef,  and  casting  from  time  to 
time  an  eye  through  the  window,  to  see  how  his  steed  sped  with 
his  provender.  A  large  tankard  of  ale  flanked  his  plate  of  victuals, 
to  which  he  applied  himself  by  intervals. 

Mr.  Pleydell  was  a  lively,  sharp-looking  gentleman,  with  a 
professional  shrewdness  in  his  eye,  and,  generally  speaking,  a  pro- 


266  ENGLISH  COMPOSITION 

fessional  formality  in  his  manners.  But  this,  like  his  three-tailed 
wig  and  black  coat,  he  could  slip  off  on  a  Saturday  evening,  when 
surrounded  by  a  party  of  jolly  companions,  and  disposed  for  what 
he  called  his  altitudes.  .  .  .  On  the  present  occasion,  the  revel 
had  lasted  since  four  o'clock,  and  at  length,  under  the  direction  of  a 
venerable  compotator,  who  had  shared  the  sports  and  festivities  of 
three  generations,  the  frolicsome  company  had  begun  to  practice 
the  ancient  and  now  forgotten  pastime  of  High  Jinks.  ...  At 
this  sport  the  jovial  company  were  closely  engaged,  when  Man- 
nering  entered  the  room. 

Mr.  Counsellor  Pleydell,  such  as  we  have  described  him,  was 
enthroned,  as  a  monarch,  in  an  elbow  chair,  placed  on  the  dining 
table,  his  scratch  wig  on  one  side,  his  head  crowned  with  a  bottle- 
slider,  his  eye  leering  with  an  expression  betwixt  fun  and  the  effects 
of  wine,  while  his  court  around  him  resounded  with  such  crambo 
scraps  of  verse  as  these :  — 

Where  is  Gerunto  now,  and  what's  become  of  him  ? 
Gerunto's  drowned  because  he  could  not  swim,  etc.  etc. 

She  was  the  tallest  woman  I  ever  saw,  and  her  hair  was  as  black 
as  midnight,  unless  where  it  was  gray,  and  she  had  a  scar  abune 
the  brow,  that  ye  might  hae  laid  the  lith  of  your  finger  in. 

MADAME   VAUQUER 

Bientot  la  veuve  se  montre,  attifee  de  son  bonnet  de  tulle  sous 
lequel  pend  un  tour  de  faux  cheveux  mal  mis;  elle  marche  en 
trainassant  ses  pantoufles  grimacees.  Sa  face  vieillotte,  gras- 
souillette,  du  milieu  de  laquelle  sort  un  nez  a  bee  de  perroquet; 
ses  petites  mains  potelees,  sa  personne  dodue  comme  un  rat 
d'eglise,  son  corsage  trop  plein  et  qui  flotte,  sont  en  harmonic  avec 
cette  salle  ou  suinte  le  malheur,  ou  s'est  blottie  la  speculation,  et 
dont  madame  Vauquer  respire  1'air  chaudement  fetide  sans  en 
etre  ecoeuree.  Sa  figure  fraiche  comme  une  premiere  gelee  d'au- 
tomne,  ses  yeux  rides  dont  Pexpression  passe  du  sourire  present 
aux  danseuses  a  1'amer  renfrognement  de  Pescompteur,  enfin 
toute  sa  personne  explique  la  pension,  comme  la  pension  implique 
sa  personne.  Le  bagne  ne  va  pas  sans  1'argousin,  vous  n'ima- 
gineriez  pas  1'un  sans  1'autre.  L'embonpoint  blafard  de  cette 


DESCRIPTION  267 

femme  est  le  produit  de  cette  vie,  comme  le  typhus  est  la  con- 
sequence des  exhalaisons  d'un  hopital.  Son  jupon  de  lain  tri- 
cotee,  qui  depasse  sa  premiere  jupe  faite  avec  une  vieille  robe,  et 
dont  la  ouate  s'echappe  par  les  fentes  de  Petoffe  lezardee,  resume 
le  salon,  le  salle  a  manger,  le  jardinet,  annonce  la  cuisine  et  fait 
pressentir  les  pensionnaires.  Quand  elle  est  la,  le  spectacle  est 
complet.  Agee  d'environ  cinquante  ans,  madame  Vauquer  res- 
semble  a  toutes  les  femmes  qui  ont  eu  des  malheurs.  Elle  a  1'ceuil 
vitreux,  Pair  innocent  d'une  entremetteuse  qui  va  se  gendarmer 
pour  se  faire  payer  plus  cher,  mais  d'ailleurs  prete  a  tout  pour 
adoucir  son  sort,  a  livrer  Georges  ou  Pichegru,  si  Georges  ou 
Pichegru  etaient  encore  a  livrer.  Neanmoins,  elle  est  bonne 
femme  au  fond,  disent  les  pensionnaires,  qui  la  croient  sans 
fortune  en  1'entendant  geindre  et  tousser  comme  eux.  .  .  . 

—  H.  DE  BALZAC:  Le  Plre  Goriot. 

It  was  late  in  the  afternoon,  and  the  light  was  waning.  There 
was  a  difference  in  the  look  of  the  tree  shadows  out  in  the  yard. 
Somewhere  in  the  distance  cows  were  lowing  and  a  little  bell  was 
tinkling ;  now  and  then  a  farm-wagon  tilted  by,  and  the  dust  flew ; 
some  blue-shirted  laborers  with  shovels  over  their  shoulders 
plodded  past;  little  swarms  of  flies  were  dancing  up  and  down 
before  the  people's  faces  in  the  soft  air.  There  seemed  to  be  a 
gentle  stir  arising  over  everything  for  the  mere  sake  of  subsidence 
—  a  very  premonition  of  rest  and  hush  and  night. 

This  soft  diurnal  commotion  was  over  Louisa  Ellis  also.  She 
had  been  peacefully  sewing  at  her  sitting-room  window  all  the 
afternoon.  Now  she  quilted  her  needle  carefully  into  her  work, 
which  she  folded  precisely,  and  laid  in  a  basket  with  her  thimble 
and  thread  and  scissors.  Louisa  Ellis  could  not  remember  that 
ever  in  her  life  she  had  mislaid  one  of  these  little  feminine  appur- 
tenances, which  had  become,  from  long  use  and  constant  associa- 
tion, a  very  part  of  her  personality. 

Louisa  tied  a  green  apron  around  her  waist,  and  got  out  a  flat 
straw  hat  with  a  green  ribbon.  Then  she  went  into  the  garden 
with  a  little  blue  crockery  bowl,  to  pick  some  currants  for  her  tea. 
After  the  currants  were  picked  she  sat  on  the  back  door-step  and 
stemmed  them,  collecting  the  stems  carefully  in  her  apron,  and 


268  ENGLISH   COMPOSITION 

afterwards  throwing  them  into  the  hencoop.     She  looked  sharply 
at  the  grass  beside  the  step  to  see  if  any  had  fallen  there. 

Louisa  was  slow  and  still  in  her  movements ;  it  took  her  a  long 
time  to  prepare  her  tea;  but  when  ready,  it  was  set  forth  with  as 
much  grace  as  if  she  had  been  a  veritable  guest  to  her  own  self. 
The  little  square  table  stood  exactly  in  the  center  of  the  kitchen, 
and  was  covered  with  a  starched  linen  cloth  whose  border  pattern 
of  flowers  glistened.  Louisa  had  a  damask  napkin  on  her  tea- 
tray,  where  were  arranged  a  cut-glass  tumbler  full  of  teaspoons, 
a  silver  cream-pitcher,  a  china  sugar-bowl,  and  one  pink  china 
cup  and  saucer.  Louisa  used  china  every  day  —  something  which 
none  of  her  neighbors  did.  They  whispered  about  it  among 
themselves.  Their  daily  tables  were  laid  with  common  crockery, 
their  sets  of  best  china  stayed  in  the  parlor  closet,  and  Louisa 
Ellis  was  no  richer  nor  better  bred  than  they.  Still  she  would  use 
the  china.  She  had  for  her  supper  a  glass  dish  full  of  sugared 
currants,  a  plate  of  little  cakes,  and  one  of  light  white  biscuits. 
Also  a  leaf  or  two  of  lettuce,  which  she  cut  up  daintily.  Louisa  was 
very  fond  of  lettuce,  which  she  raised  to  perfection  in  her  little 
garden.  She  ate  quite  heartily,  though  in  a  delicate,  pecking  way ; 
it  seemed  almost  surprising  that  any  considerable  bulk  of  the  food 
should  vanish. 

—  MRS.  WILKINS-FREEMAN  :  A  New  England  Nun. 

This  is  the  history  of  Silas  Marner  until  the  fifteenth  year  after 
he  came  to  Raveloe.  The  livelong  day  he  sat  in  his  loom,  his  ear 
filled  with  its  monotony,  his  eyes  bent  close  down  on  the  slow 
growth  of  sameness  in  the  brownish  web,  his  muscles  moving  with 
such  even  repetition  that  their  pause  seemed  almost  as  much  a 
constraint  as  the  holding  of  his  breath.  But  at  night  came  his 
revelry:  at  night  he  closed  his  shutters,  and  made  fast  his  doors, 
and  drew  forth  his  gold.  Long  ago  the  heap  of  coins  had  become 
too  large  for  the  iron  pot  to  hold  them,  and  he  had  made  for  them 
two  thick  leather  bags,  which  wasted  no  room  in  their  resting  place, 
but  lent  themselves  flexibly  to  every  corner.  How  the  guineas 
shone  as  they  came  pouring  out  of  the  dark  leather  mouths !  The 
silver  bore  no  large  proportion  in  amount  to  the  gold,  because  the 
long  pieces  of  linen  which  formed  his  chief  work  were  always  partly 


DESCRIPTION  269 

paid  for  in  gold,  and  out  of  the  silver  he  supplied  his  own  bodily 
wants,  choosing  always  the  shillings  and  sixpences  to  spend  in  this 
way.  He  loved  the  guineas  best,  but  he  would  not  change  the 
silver  —  the  crowns  and  half-crowns  that  were  his  own  earnings, 
begotten  by  his  labor;  he  loved  them  all.  He  spread  them  out 
in  heaps  and  bathed  his  hands  in  them ;  then  he  counted  them  and 
set  them  up  in  regular  piles,  and  felt  their  rounded  outline  between 
his  thumb  and  fingers,  and  thought  fondly  of  the  guineas  that  were 
only  half-earned  by  the  work  of  his  loom,  as  if  they  had  been  un- 
born children  —  thought  of  the  guineas  that  were  coming  slowly 
through  the  coming  years,  through  all  his  life,  which  spread  far 
away  before  him,  the  end  quite  hidden  by  countless  days  of  weaving. 
No  wonder  his  thoughts  were  still  with  his  loom  and  his  money 
when  he  made  his  journeys  through  the  fields  and  the  lanes  to 
fetch  and  carry  home  his  work,  so  that  his  steps  never  wandered 
to  the  hedge-banks  and  the  lane-side  in  search  of  the  once  familiar 
herbs:  these  too  belonged  to  the  past,  from  which  his  life  had 
shrunk  away,  like  a  rivulet  that  has  sunk  far  down  from  the  grassy 
fringe  of  its  old  breadth  into  a  little  shivering  thread,  that  cuts  a 
groove  for  itself  in  the  barren  sand. 

—  GEORGE  ELIOT:  Silas  Marner. 

Arthur's,  as  you  know,  was  a  loving  nature.  Deeds  of  kindness 
were  as  easy  to  him  as  a  bad  habit :  they  were  the  common  issue  of 
his  weaknesses  and  good  qualities,  of  his  egoism  and  his  sympathy. 
He  didn't  like  to  witness  pain,  and  he  liked  to  have  grateful  eyes 
beaming  on  him  as  the  giver  of  pleasure.  When  he  was  a  lad  of 
seven,  he  one  day  kicked  down  an  old  gardener's  pitcher  of  broth, 
from  no  motive  but  a  kicking  impulse,  not  reflecting  that  it  was 
the  old  man's  dinner;  but  on  learning  that  sad  fact,  he  took  his 
favorite  pencil-case  and  a  silver-hafted  knife  out  of  his  pocket  and 
offered  them  as  compensation.  He  had  been  the  same  Arthur 
ever  since,  trying  to  make  all  offences  forgotten  in  benefits.  If 
there  were  any  bitterness  in  his  nature,  it  could  only  show  itself 
against  the  man  who  refused  to  be  conciliated  by  him. 

—  GEORGE  ELIOT:  Adam  Bede. 

Hetty  in  her  red  cloak  and  warm  bonnet,  with  her  basket  in 
her  hand,  is  turning  towards  a  gate  by  the  side  of  the  Treddleston 


270 


ENGLISH   COMPOSITION 


road,  but  not  that  she  may  have  a  more  lingering  enjoyment  of 
the  sunshine,  and  think  with  hope  of  the  long  unfolding  year. 
She  hardly  knows  that  the  sun  is  shining,  and  for  weeks,  now, 
when  she  has  hoped  at  all,  it  has  been  for  something  at  which  she 
herself  trembles  and  shudders.  She  only  wants  to  be  out  of  the 
highroad,  that  she  may  walk  slowly,  and  not  care  how  her  face 
looks,  as  she  dwells  on  wretched  thoughts ;  and  through  this  gate 
she  can  get  into  a  field-path  behind  the  wide  thick  hedgerows. 
Her  great  dark  eyes  wander  blankly  over  the  fields  like  the  eyes 
of  one  who  is  desolate,  homeless,  unloved,  not  the  promised  bride 
of  a  brave,  tender  man.  But  there  are  no  tears  in  them:  her  tears 
were  all  wept  away  in  the  weary  night,  before  she  went  to  sleep. 
At  the  next  stile  the  pathway  branches  off:  there  are  two  roads 
before  her  —  one  along  by  the  hedgerow,  wrhich  will  by-and-by 
lead  her  into  the  road  again;  the  other  across  the  fields,  which 
will  take  her  much  farther  out  of  the  way  into  the  Scantlands, 
low  shrouded  pastures  where  she  will  see  nobody.  She  chooses 
this,  and  begins  to  walk  a  little  faster,  as  if  she  had  suddenly 
thought  of  an  object  towards  which  it  was  worth  while  to  hasten. 
Soon  she  is  in  the  Scantlands,  where  the  grassy  land  slopes  gradu- 
ally downwards,  and  she  leaves  the  level  ground  to  follow  the 
slope.  Farther  on  there  is  a  clump  of  trees  on  the  low  ground, 
and  she  is  making  her  way  towards  it.  No,  it  is  not  a  clump  of 
trees,  but  a  dark  shrouded  pool,  so  full  with  the  wintry  rains  that 
the  under  boughs  of  the  elder-bushes  lie  low  beneath  the  water. 
She  sits  down  on  the  grassy  bank,  against  the  stooping  stem  of 
the  great  oak  that  hangs  over  the  dark  pool.  She  has  thought  of 
this  pool  often  in  the  nights  of  the  month  that  has  just  gone  by, 
and  now  at  last  she  is  come  to  see  it.  She  clasps  her  hands  round 
her  knees  and  leans  forward,  and  looks  earnestly  at  it,  as  if  try- 
ing to  guess  what  sort  of  bed  it  would  make  for  her  young  round 
limbs. 

No,  she  has  not  courage  to  jump  into  that  cold  watery  bed,  and 
if  she  had,  they  might  find  her  —  they  might  find  out  why  she 
had  drowned  herself.  There  is  but  one  thing  left  to  her:  she  must 
go  away,  go  where  they  can't  find  her. 

—  GEORGE  ELIOT  :  Adam  Bede. 


DESCRIPTION 


271 


It  was  perhaps  not  very  unreasonable  to  suspect  from  what  had 
already  passed,  that  Mr.  Swiveller  was  not  quite  recovered  from 
the  effects  of  the  powerful  sunlight  to  which  he  had  made  allusion; 
but  if  no  such  suspicion  had  been  awakened  by  his  speech,  his 
wiry  hair,  dull  eyes,  and  sallow  face,  would  still  have  been  strong 
witnesses  against  him.  His  attire  was  not,  as  he  had  himself 
hinted,  remarkable  for  the  nicest  arrangement,  but  was  in  a  state 
of  disorder  which  strongly  induced  the  idea  that  he  had  gone  to 
bed  in  it.  It  consisted  of  a  brown  body-coat  with  a  great  many 
brass  buttons  up  the  front  and  only  one  behind,  a  bright  check 
neckerchief,  a  plaid  waistcoat,  soiled  white  trousers,  and  a  very 
limp  hat,  worn  with  the  wrong  side  foremost,  to  hide  a  hole  in  the 
brim.  The  breast  of  his  coat  was  ornamented  with  an  outside 
pocket  from  which  there  peeped  forth  the  cleanest  end  of  a  very 
large  and  very  ill-favored  handkerchief ;  his  dirty  wristbands  were 
pulled  down  as  far  as  possible  and  ostentatiously  folded  back  over 
his  cuffs ;  he  displayed  no  gloves,  and  carried  a  yellow  cane  having 
at  the  top  a  bone  hand  with  the  semblance  of  a  ring  on  its  little 
finger  and  a  black  ball  in  its  grasp.  With  all  these  personal  ad- 
vantages (to  which  may  be  added  a  strong  savor  of  tobacco  smoke, 
and  a  prevailing  greasiness  of  appearance)  Mr.  Swiveller  leant 
back  in  his  chair  with  his  eyes  fixed  on  the  ceiling,  and  occasionally 
pitching  his  voice  to  the  needful  key,  obliged  the  company  with 
a  few  bars  of  an  intensely  dismal  air,  and  then,  in  the  middle  of 
a  note,  relapsed  into  his  former  silence. 

—  DICKENS:  Old  Curiosity  Shop. 


PART   IV 
NARRATIVE 
CHAPTER  XI 

SIMPLE   NARRATIVE 

LIFE  is  made  up,  in  some  measure  at  least,  of  events.  In  order 
to  explain  the  nature  or  the  cause  of  these  events,  or  to  account  for 
circumstances  which  arise  from  them,  exposition  is  necessary. 
But  to  tell  them  requires  narrative.  Exposition  explains;  Nar- 
rative tells  what  happens. 

Pizarro,  balked  in  his  attempt  to  discover  a  rich  kingdom  in  the 
South,  gained  the  support  which  hitherto  he  had  lacked,  by  one 
bold  and  desperate  act,  an  act  which  convinced  the  doubters  of 
his  courage  and  determination.  Drawing  his  sword,  he  traced  a 
line  with  it  on  the  sand  from  east  to  west.  Then  turning  towards 
the  south,  'Friends  and  comrades!'  he  said,  'on  that  side  are 
toil,  hunger,  nakedness,  the  drenching  storm,  desertion,  and  death ; 
on  this  side,  ease  and  pleasure.  There  lies  Peru  with  its  riches; 
here,  Panama  and  its  poverty.  Choose,  each  man,  what  best 
becomes  a  brave  Castilian.  For  my  part,  I  go  to  the  south.'  So 
saying,  he  stepped  across  the  line. 

The  sentence  beginning  with  the  word  "Pizarro"  is  exposition, 
for  it  explains.  The  next  six  sentences  are  narrative,  for  they  tell 
in  sequence  the  actual  events.  If  the  difference  between  the  two 
modes  is  not  made  clear  by  this  instance,  compare  the  editorial 
page  of  a  morning  paper  with  the  news  column  on  the  day  after 
a  game,  a  strike,  or  an  election.  Upon  the  former  one  finds 
comment  which  deals  with  the  how,  the  why,  the  wherefore,  and 
all  else  which  should  or  can  be  explained.  In  the  latter  is  the 
narrative  of  what  happened. 

Narrative  is  an  account  of  events,  and  good  narrative  is,  first 
of  all,  an  account  made  up  of  the  right  events.  Life  is  a  driving 


SIMPLE  NARRATIVE  .      273 

whirl  of  happenings, — important,  unimportant;  significant,  trivial. 
To  tell  about  all  of  the  happenings  of  a  day  or  an  hour  is  virtually 
impossible.  Which  are  to  be  chosen,  which  discarded,  in  making 
narrative?  The  problem  troubled  us  as  children  when  we  ram- 
bled helplessly  in  our  attempt  to  tell  what  happened  in  our  first 
day  at  school.  We  have  overcome  such  elementary  difficulties 
and  now  tell  a  plain  tale  with  some  clearness  because  we  instinctively 
omit  those  events  which  do  not  bear  upon  the  action  which  we 
would  recount.  Yet,  even  in  maturity,  some  unfortunate  in- 
dividuals cannot  narrate.  Juliet's  nurse  could  not  get  her  story 
straight  because  she  would  include  the  bump  on  Juliet's  forehead. 
Dogberry  could  not  tell  the  tale  of  Don  John's  intrigue  because 
of  his  inability  to  pick  out  the  significant  in  what  he  saw.  Read 
Act  V,  scene  i,  of  Much  Ado  about  Nothing  and  see  how  Borachio, 
by  proper  inclusions  and  exclusions,  makes  his  narrative  of  the 
same  intrigue  both  clear  and  brief.  Dogberry  and  the  Nurse  are 
exceptional,  naturally;  yet  the  man  who  in  journalism,  on  the 
witness  stand,  or  in  a  theme,  tries  to  reproduce,  in  words  and  under 
pressure,  a  reasonably  complicated  action  may  learn  to  sympathize 
with  their  difficulties.  His  lifelong  practice  in  everyday  narration 
will  save  him,  perhaps,  from  absurdity,  yet,  consciously  or  uncon- 
sciously, he  must  choose  the  right  items  of  incident  for  inclusion 
in  his  narrative  or  he  will  never  be  able  to  give  a  thoroughly  satis- 
factory account. 

Suppose  this  hypothetical  person  to  be  a  "cub  reporter"  trying 
to  "write  up"  a  brief  account  of  a  street  fight.  He  saw  it  all. 
How  much  and  what  shall  he  put  in?  Here  are  his  first  two 
attempts :  — 

There  was  a  fight  upon  Main  Street  at  twelve  o'clock  to-day  which 
promised,  for  a  while,  to  be  serious.  A  brick  thrown  in  the  scuffle 
went  through  the  window  of  the  new  grocery  store  and  broke  a  dozen 
bottles  of  olives.  The  offenders  were  not  caught.  They  are  said  to 
have  been  strangers. 

A  party  of  strangers  whose  names  could  not  be  learned  commenced 
to  fight  among  themselves  on  Main  Street  at  about  twelve  o'clock  this 
morning.  Fists  were  used  freely,  and  bricks,  one  of  which  broke  a 
window  in  the  new  grocery.  It  is  said  that  one  man  was  so  seriously 
injured  as  to  be  able  to  walk  only  with  the  assistance  of  a  friend. 
I 


274 


EXGL1SH   COMPOSITION 


A  crowd  was  attracted  by  the  sound  of  cursing  and  blows,  but  the 
offenders  patched  up  their  differences,  and  escaped  towards  the 
station  before  they  could  be  arrested. 

The  first  of  these  is  rather  bad,  the  second  rather  good.  What 
makes  the  difference?  Merely  this:  that  in  the  second  version 
the  reporter  chose  more  skillfully  among  the  many  things  which  he 
witnessed,  and  the  many  more  that  were  recounted  by  other  by- 
standers. He  dropped  the  smashed  olive  bottles  as  unessential, 
and  added  the  injury,  the  reconciliation,  and  the  direction  of  flight 
as  more  relevant.  Select  the  incidents  u'hicJi  advance  and  make 
clear  the  action  is  the  first  rule  for  the  narrator. 

Observance  of  this  rule  will  result  in  a  prime  virtue  of  good 
narrative,  a  steady  movement.  A  narrative  must  always  move; 
good  narrative  nearly  always  moves  rapidly.  The  selection  of 
the  incident  which  really  advances  the  action  is  like  putting  your 
muscle  into  that  part  of  the  stroke  where  the  oar  takes  hold  of  the 
water  most  effectively.  The  latter  sends  the  boat  ahead,  the  former 
the  narrative.  The  selection  which  follows  is  a  striking  example 
of  celerity  gained  by  a  scrupulous  exclusion  of  all  but  the  in- 
dispensable moments  of  the  episode.  It  is  from  Fenelon,  and  re- 
counts the  death  of  Baccharis,  king  of  Egypt :  — 

"  Je  le  vis  perir;  le  dard  d'un  Phenicien  perc,a  sa  poitrine;  les 
renes  lui  echapperent  des  mains;  il  tomba  de  son  char  sous  les 
pieds  des  chevaux.  Un  soldat  lui  coupa  la  tete,  et,  la  prenant  par 
les  cheveux,  il  la  montra  comme  en  triomphe  a  toute  1'armee." 

No  digressions,  not  too  many  episodes,  no  tedious  passages,  but 
vigor,  restraint,  rapidity,  —  these  are  the  qualities  of  good  narrative. 
This  is  the  advice  which  Albalat,  the  French  rhetorician,  gives  to 
the  French  writer,  and  it  is  equally  valuable  for  the  writer  in 
English. 

But  the  narrator  must  usually  do  more  than  tell  clearly  and 
truthfully  what  happened.  His  purpose  is  broader.  He  desires 
to  be  not  only  accurate  but  convincing.  If  he  is  a  journalist, 
he  must  make  his  report  read  true ;  if  he  is  a  novelist,  he  must 
make  his  story  read  as  if  it  had  really  happened.  If  he  is  only 
a  letter  writer  engaged  in  ordinary  correspondence,  he  will  wish 
to  give  an  air  of  reality  to  the  experiences  which  he  recounts. 
Journalists  and  writers  of  fiction  in  particular,  but  also  every  one 


SIMPLE  NARRATIVE 


275 


with  something  to  tell,  must  therefore  do  more  than  decide  what 
incidents  most  advance  and  make  clear  the  narrative.  They 
must  also  decide  what  selection  of  incidents  will  make  it  most  real 
to  the  reader  for  whom  it  is  written.  Now  these  two  requirements 
go  hand  in  hand,  for  the  drop-kick  which  won  the  game  does  no 
more  to  advance  the  action  of  the  narrative  in  which  it  is  included 
than  it  serves  to  make  the  narrative  real  to  the  reader.  But  there 
were  other  incidents  at  that  football  game  which  were  not  part  of 
the  main  action,  which  did  not  bear  upon  the  game,  which  were 
by  no  means  significant  for  the  final  result.  And  yet  they  were  so 
inseparably  connected  with  the  chief  happenings  of  the  day,  they 
found  a  place  in  so  many  memories,  that  not  to  tell  of  them  would 
be  to  strike  out  some  of  the  most  familiar  features  of  the  moving 
picture  you  are  constructing  for  your  readers.  There  was  the 
dog  who  wandered  upon  the  field  and  was  distracted  by  ten  thou- 
sand whistles;  there  was  the  balloon  that  sailed  over  the  grand 
stands;  there  were  the  innumerable  yellow  flames  of  matches 
against  the  dark  backgrounds  of  the  stands  in  the  growing  dusk. 
You  must  get  all  these  in  if  you  wish  to  make  your  story  read  as 
if  it  were  true.  In  life,  such  accidental  circumstances  always 
accompany  the  main  action,  and  some  of  them  must  always  ac- 
company it  in  narrative.  If  our  hypothetical  "cub  reporter"  of 
the  previous  paragraph  had  written  a  third  version  of  his  report  of 
the  street  fight,  he  might  have  reinstated  the  destruction  of  the 
olive  bottles,  not  because  the  incident  was  important,  but  because 
it  gave  a  little  homely  realism  to  his  story. 

Here,  for  example,  is  a  skeleton  outline  of  The  Morning  Bugle's 
account  of  a  fire :  — 

1.  The  Smith  block 'burned. 

2.  First  discovery  of  fire. 

3.  Arrival  of  engines. 

4.  Rapid  spread  of  fire. 

5.  Bursting  of  show  windows  by  heat.* 

6.  The  work  of  the  various  fire  companies. 

7.  Crowd  assembles.* 

8.  The  bursting  of  a  hose.* 

9.  Firemen  have  conflict  with  students.* 
10.   Roof  falls  in. 


276  ENGLISH   COMPOSITION 

11.  Walls  sway. 

12.  Crowd  pushed  back.* 

13.  Fire  under  control. 

14.  Pickpocket  at  work  in  the  crowd.* 

Of  these,  the  items  followed  by  an  asterisk  are  not  part  of  the  main 
action  of  the  fire,  but  they  would  play  a  very  important  part  in 
making  the  narrative  realistic  and  vivid.  Indeed,  at  a  very  large 
fire  an  important  newspaper  would  assign  two  reporters  to  the 
task  of  "writing  up"  the  catastrophe,  one  to  tell  an  unvarnished 
tale  recounting  the  facts  of  the  case  in  the  simplest  and  most  literal 
manner,  the  other  to  provide  a  narrative  for  those  who  were  more 
interested  in  the  exciting  picture  which  the  news  column  presented 
to  their  imaginations  than  in  the  precise  amount  of  the  damages, 
or  the  number  of  minutes  required  to  check  the  fire. 

And  so  in  all  forms  of  narrative  which  are  intended  to  convey  an 
impression  of  truthfulness  the  circumstances  accompanying  actual 
life  must  be  included.  In  certain  kinds  of  journalism,  indeed,  these 
circumstances  become  more  important  than  the  action  which  they 
accompany.  Such  journalism  is  exaggerated,  of  course,  yet  by 
this  very  exaggeration  it  illustrates  admirably  the  various  devices 
which  can  accomplish  the  writer's  purpose.  You  will  be  able  to 
choose  your  own  example  upon  the  day  following  any  event  suffi- 
ciently important  to  be  fully  reported  in  the  metropolitan  news- 
papers. A  characteristic  example  follows  this  section.  A  more 
classic  and  less  easily  accessible  specimen  is  also  reprinted  in  the 
following  pages.  The  Apparition  of  Mrs.  Veal  is  by  Daniel 
Defoe.  Defoe  was  author  of  Robinson  Crusoe,  a  book  which 
owes  its  enduring  popularity  to  the  intense  reality  of  the  strange 
adventures  which  it  contains.  The  Apparition  of  Mrs.  Veal  has 
the  same  merits.  It  was  undoubtedly  fabricated  from  beginning 
to  end;  yet  the  supporting  circumstances,  the  painstaking  in- 
clusion of  probable  details,  the  informality  of  the  narrative,  every- 
thing down  to  the  striking  of  the  clock  helps  to  make  the  impossible 
seem  probable  and  real. 

So  far  the  writing  of  narrative  has  been  discussed  only  in  relation 
to  certain  special  problems  which  arise  when  events  are  to  be  told 
of,  not  explained.  But  it  is  not  to  be  forgotten  that  the  laws  which 
govern  good  expression  —  the  laws  of  Unity,  Coherence,  and  Em- 


SIMPLE  NARRATIVE  277 

phasis — apply  here  as  in  exposition.  The  narrator  must  keep  in 
view  the  aim  of  his  narrative,  otherwise  he  will  not  select  the  proper 
events,  and  to  keep  this  aim  in  view  is  to  strive  for  unity.  He  must 
make  his  development  either  strictly  chronological,  or,  if  he  departs 
from  the  chronological,  he  must  make  the  relation  between  his 
events  thoroughly  comprehensible,  and  so  assure  coherence.  He 
must  arrange  and  proportion  his  account  so  that  what  is  most  im- 
portant shall  be  given  the  space  and  the  emphatic  position  which 
is  its  due.  But  the  necessity  for  good  Unity,  Coherence,  and 
Emphasis  will  appear  even  more  clearly  in  the  next  section,  which 
will  treat  of  the  specialized  variety  of  narrative  called  "  the  story." 

AND  THE   CROWD   CHEERED 

HEARTILY    FOR    NEW    YORK;     IRONICALLY    FOR    CHICAGO 

A  Rip-snorting  Tearing  Time,  Breaking  Fences  and  Frantically 
Trying  to  Get  Places  Where  They  Had  No  Right  to  Be  — 
About  Some  Who  Were  There. 

The  biggest  day  that  baseball  ever  saw,  even  if  the  Giants  did 
lose  the  game  and  the  pennant  —  that's  the  fact  about  what 
happened  yesterday  afternoon  at  the  Polo  Grounds.  Everybody 
asks  everybody  else  as  everybody  files  out  at  the  big  gates  after 
it  was  all  over  if  anybody  ever  knew  the  like  before  —  two  teams 
tied  for  the  pennant  at  the  end  of  a  154  game  series.  And  every- 
body promptly  answers  that  he'll  be  darned  if  he  ever  did  and  he'll 
be  darned  again  if  ever  anybody  else  did.  Nobody  else  ever  did 
either,  so  nobody  need  be  darned. 

It's  half  past  two  o'clock  and  less  than  30,000  wildly  excited 
human  beings  inside  are  waiting  for  the  game  to  begin.  There 
would  be  twice  that  number  if  the  Polo  Grounds  were  twice  as 
large.  There  would  be  even  40,000  people  inside  the  grounds 
as  it  is  if  the  management  hadn't  shut  the  gates,  in  accordance 
with  the  rules,  against  the  throng  at  half  past  one  —  a  full  hour 
and  a  half  before  the  game  begins.  But  all  the  folks  that  see  the 
game  aren't  inside  the  gates.  By  no  means.  Take  a  look  around 
and  see  where  they  are  climbing,  perching,  scrambling,  balancing, 
hanging  on  with  their  toes  and  their  eyelids. 


278  ENGLISH  COMPOSITION 


OH,    SEE   THE   PEOPLE 

There  are  thousands  of  them  on  Coogan's  Bluff.  The  viaduct 
is  black  with  them.  They  are  roosting  on  the  grand  stand  roof. 
The  third  rail  cannot  keep  them  off  the  elevated  railroad  structure. 
One  man  has  climbed  to  the  top  of  a  huge  derrick  that  overlooks 
the  left  field  fence.  They  swarm  around  the  edges  of  the  field 
anywhere  from  three  to  ten  deep.  There  are  10,000  present  three 
hours  before  the  time  set  for  the  game  and  for  at  least  an  hour  and  a 
half  fully  30,000  sit  in  their  seats  waiting  with  what  patience  they 
can  summon. 

Outside  the  gates  things  are  in  a  mess.  There's  a  mob  of  some- 
where near  15,000  persons  hammering  at  the  gates  and  they  won't 
be  let  in.  They  know  that,  too,  but  that  doesn't  stop  them  from 
hammering.  A  good  many  of  them  have  tickets,  but  that  makes 
no  difference.  Nice  time  to  show  up  —  half  past  two  o'clock  on 
such  a  day,  when  the  game  begins  at  three.  Ought  to  have  come 
at  noon  like  the  rest  of  us !  So  the  mob  that  is  shut  out  filters 
gradually  around  the  inclosure  until  the  Polo  Grounds  are  ringed 
about  with  the  disappointed.  Somebody  finds  a  loose  board  on 
the  fence  that  divides  the  Polo  Grounds  from  Manhattan  Field. 
In  an  instant  fifty  hands  are  tearing  at  it.  In  another  moment 
six  boards  are  wrenched  off.  The  rush  that  follows  is  almost  a 
stampede.  Squads  of  cops  rush  up,  but  before  they  can  stop  the 
breach  several  hundred  have  scampered  through  it  and  are  in  the 
promised  land,  leaping  through  the  barbed  wire  with  a  sublime 
disregard  for  the  consequences  to  their  clothes.  Lots  of  folks 
have  friends  on  the  outside  trying  to  get  in,  but  you  can't  go  out 
to  help  them.  If  you  do,  you  know  you  can't  get  back. 

A  fat  man  comes  into  the  right  field  bleachers  carrying  a  baby 
who  may  yet  grow  up  to  be  a  great  pitcher  like  Matty.  He  is 
cheered  frantically  and  he  grabs  the  kid  with  one  hand  and  waves 
at  the  crowd  with  the  other.  Pretty  girls  are  cheered,  homely 
girls  are  cheered,  fat  men,  thin  men,  tall  men,  short  men,  the  girl 
with  a  hat  as  big  as  three  of  Fred  Tenney's  mitts  —  anything  and 
everything  for  a  cheer. 

Up  on  the  elevated  tracks  a  hundred  or  so  men  have  scrambled 
to  the  roof  of  an  empty  train.  They're  splendid  seats  from  which 


SIMPLE   NARRATIVE 


279 


to  view  the  game,  and  their  possessors  are  widely  envied.  Suddenly 
the  train  begins  to  move;  it  moves  more  and  more  rapidly,  and 
amid  a  vast  roar  of  laughter  the  folks  on  the  car  roofs  are  borne 
away  and  out  of  sight. 

TAKING   OFF   THE   SHEETS 

Now  a  couple  of  the  players  reserved  from  the  minor  leagues 
appear  from  the  clubhouse  and  begin  to  throw  the  ball  around  the 
diamond  that  has  only  recently  been  uncovered.  Uncovered  from 
what?  Why,  from  the  huge  canvas  sheets  that  have  been  spread 
on  it  all  night.  They  put  the  diamond  to  bed  early  the  night 
before  so  that  it  would  get  a  good  night's  rest  for  the  game  of  all 
games. 

Smiling  Larry  Doyle,  who  was  the  Giants'  regular  second 
baseman  until  he  hurt  his  leg  a  month  ago,  is  the  first  of  the 
regulars  to  show  up.  He  gets  many  cheers.  Nobody  thinks  it 
necessary  to  explain  that  Larry's  only  chance  to  get  into  the  game 
is  as  a  hitter  in  a  tight  pinch.  Everybody  knows  it.  It's  ele- 
mentary information. 

And  then  out  from  the  clubhouse  emerges  a  melancholy  figure. 
Shall  we  say  that  it  is  the  figure  of  the  man  who  lost  the  pennant  ? 
Well,  anyhow,  it's  the  figure  of  Fred  Merkle,  and  everybody  knows 
that  if  he'd  run  to  second  when  Bridwell  made  that  safe  hit  at  the 
end  of  the  now  famous  disputed  game  with  the  Cubs  a  couple  of 
weeks  ago  the  pennant  would  now  be  waving  from  that  flagstaff 
out  there  in  center  field.  Instead  of  which  here  we  are  about  to 
fight  as  best  we  may  for  that  same  game  again.  Amid  a  silence 
that  cuts  Merkle  crosses  the  field  and  begins  to  toss  a  ball  about. 
It's  clear  that  he  feels  worse  than  anybody  else  about  it.  Nobody 
has  the  heart  to  jeer  him.  But  all  the  same 

NO  CHEERS   FOR   MERKLE 

Wiltse,  the  southpaw,  the  port  wheeler  (this  means  that  he  pitches 
with  his  left  arm),  is  the  next  to  appear,  along  with  Ames,  his  fel- 
low twirler.  They  got  cheered  too.  Cheers  for  everybody  and 
everything  save  the  melancholy  Merkle  —  up  to  date,  that  is ; 
but  it's  different  a  moment  later  when  Artie  Hofman,  the  Cubs' 


28o  ENGLISH  COMPOSITION 

center  fielder,  appears.  He  comes  from  Chicago.  Therefore  his 
name  is  anathema,  mud,  Dennis.  Consequently  jeers,  boos,  and 
hisses  for  Mr.  Hofman.  Also  cries  of  "  Oh,  you  robber!" 

Pleasant  greetings  to  Mr.  Hofman  are  interrupted  by  a  new 
diversion.  Several  thousand  persons  are  suddenly  released  from 
durance  and  allowed  to  scamper  to  standing  room  behind  the 
ropes  all  about  the  field.  It  looks  like  the  serpentine  dance  after 
a  victory  for  the  Blue  on  Yale  Field.  A  moment  ago  the  field  was 
green;  now  it's  black. 

There  aren't  enough  real  cops  to  boss  a  real  lively  Sunday 
school  class,  and  how  the  deuce  things  are  ever  going  to  be  straight- 
ened doesn't  appear,  unless  you've  been  there  before  and  know 
that  when  the  umpire  is  ready  for  play,  the  field  will  clear  itself 
like  magic.  Everybody  begins  to  get  happily  restless,  and  one  fan 
says  to  another,  "Boy,  you'll  be  able  to  tell  your  grandchildren 
about  this  day  when  the  Cubs  —  or "  Fearful  of  the  out- 
come, he  rubs  his  chin  doubtfully  and  doesn't  finish  his  observation. 

Reports  come  in  that  the  mob  outside  is  storming  the  gates  with 
intent  to  break  them  down.  Muffled  thumps  are  heard  on  the 
back  of  the  grand  stand,  and  it  wouldn't  surprise  anybody  if  the 
place  were  carried  by  assault.  But  the  mounted  cops  in  the  street 
hold  the  mob  in  check  and  nothing  serious  happens.  Nothing 
serious,  is  it?  Why,  aren't  there  15,000  human  beings  right  out 
there  unable  to  see  the  game,  and  you  say  "nothing  serious"? 
How'd  you  like  to  be  out  there  yourself? 

GREETINGS   TO  CHANCE 

"Robber!"  "Bandit!"  "Quitter!"  howls  the  crowd  all  at 
once.  The  row  begins  out  in  the  right  field  bleachers  and  runs 
all  over  the  field  as  Frank  Chance  appears  from  the  clubhouse, 
loafing  carelessly  along  on  his  bowed  legs  and  looking  as  if  he 
hadn't  a  care  in  the  world.  Roars,  hoots,  hisses,  jeers  are  showered 
upon  him  as  he  advances,  but  he  smiles  pleasantly  as  if  the  freedom 
of  the  city  had  been  conferred  upon  him.  Just  behind  him  comes 
three-fingered  Brown,  the  star  pitcher  who  is  going  to  play  hob  with 
us  before  the  day  is  over.  He  is  also  called  a  number  of  things 
which  he  isn't.  He  doesn't  seem  to  mind  either.  > 


SIMPLE  NARRATIVE  2gl 

ATTENTIONS  TO   THE   VISITORS 

The  New  Yorks  take  their  batting  practice  methodically,  one 
hit  to  each  man.  Then  the  Cubs  go  in  for  theirs.  More  roars, 
more  hisses,  more  catcalls,  howls  of  contempt,  shrieks  of  "Oh, 
you  robbers !  You  brigands ! "  And  you  think  if  you  were  a 
Cub,  you'd  hunt  the  nearest  cyclone  cellar.  But  the  Cubs  wallop 
the  horsehide  as  cheerfully  as  if  the  stands  were  empty.  Mean- 
while the  jeers  keep  on.  Somebody  in  the  stand  catches  a  foul 
tip  from  a  Cub's  bat.  A  hundred  voices  shout :  "  Keep  it !  Keep 
it !  Don't  give  it  back !  Murphy  (that's  the  Chicago  baseball 
magnate)  will  cry  his  eyes  out  if  you  keep  it." 

The  Cubs  retire  and  the  Giants  begin  to  practice.  They  are 
lightning  fast.  The  infielders  don't  throw  the  ball.  They  just 
'seem  to  reflect  it,  they  are  so  fast.  It  fairly  spurts  from  their 
hands.  Time  and  again  Devlin,  Bridwell,  Herzog,  and  Tenney 
set  the  stands  in  a  roar  by  their  speed  and  accuracy.  How  can 
they  beat  'em  ?  is  what  everybody  asks.  And  nobody  can  see  how 
they  can.  Later  they  find  out. 

The  Cubs,  on  the  other  hand,  warm  up  badly.  Great  is  the 
joy  thereat.  Chance  is  jeered  at  joyously  by  10,000  throats  as 
he  goes  to  his  place  at  first.  An  instant  later  he  fumbles  a 
grounder.  Delirious  glee !  Tinker  fumbles  too.  Stupendous 
joy! 

Meantime  the  twirlers  are  warming  up  —  Pfeister,  the  left 
hander,  for  the  Cubs,  and  the  only  Matty  for  the  Giants. 
This  doesn't  take  long  and  at  a  quarter  of  three  o'clock  the 
real  trouble  begins.  It  is  time. 


WHEN  CHANCE   WAS   STUNG 

There  certainly  was  an  outpouring  of  mirth  when  Chance,  after 
hitting  safely,  is  caught  off  first  by  a  lightning  throw  by  Mathew- 
son.  You'd  have  thought  that  was  the  precise  play  that  30,000 
persons  had  come  to  see.  It  wouldn't  have  been  nearly  so  much 
fun  if  it  had  been  anybody  else  in  the  world.  But  Chance!  — 
well,  it  is  almost  more  joy  than  the  crowd  can  stand.  Chance 


282  ENGLISH   COMPOSITION 

is  not  well  pleased.  He  calls  on  heaven  to  witness  that  he  is  safe. 
He  pleads  with  Umpire  Klem.  He  throws  his  cap  into  the  dust 
and  stamps  upon  it.  Various  Cubs  assist  in  the  oratory. 

Artie  Hofman  is  the  chief  speaker.  He  gets  so  eloquent  that 
he  draws  tears  to  the  eyes  of  his  captain.  But  Umpire  Klem  is 
a  callous  soul.  He  cares  so  little  about  Artie's  eloquence  that  he 
tells  him  to  get  oft"  the  field.  Artie  retires,  but  first  he  throws  his 
glove  into  the  field.  Then  he  goes  to  get  it  again  and  on  the  way 
he  stops  and  tells  Herzog  and  Seymour  certain  things.  There's 
a  rumor  that  his  remarks  have  to  do  with  the  professional  ca- 
pacity of  Umpire  Klem. 

Then  comes  the  third  inning.  Birds  hush  their  joyous  hymns 
to  their  maker,  sun  is  obscured,  nature  veils  her  smile.  Sounds 
of  glee  are  wanting,  and  the  only  noise  heard  is  that  made 
by  the  resounding  whacks  of  Chicago  wagon  tongues  as  they  land 
on  Matty's  curves.  Sounds  to  most  of  us  like  clods  falling  on 
a  coffin.  When  it's  over,  the  Cubs  have  four  runs.  As  for  that 
vast  crowd,  it's  as  quiet  as  the  little  throng  that  hangs  around  the 
door  of  the  country  church  of  a  Sunday  morning  waiting  for  the 
parson  to  pass  in. 

But  there  are  diversions  after  that.  You  can  always  keep  on 
roasting  the  visitors,  and  Kling,  being  nearest  the  grand  stand,  is 
the  chief  target.  Once  when  he  goes  after  a  foul  tip,  somebody 
throws  a  bottle  at  him.  Another  man  throws  a  hat,  but  these 
outbreaks  are  roundly  hissed. 

"Be  a  sport,  be  a  sport,"  remonstrate  those  nearest  the  male- 
factors. 

"Forget  it,"  replies  one  of  the  evildoers.  "What  chanst  would 
d'Noo  Yorks  git  if  it  was  in  Chicago?" 

"  You're  a  bum,  Johnny  Kling ! "  howls  another  enthusiast,  but 
somebody  shuts  him  up  with:  "Wisht  we  had  a  couple  of  them 
bums  on  our  team." 

"Come  on  now,  boys,  with  the  rebel  yell!"  shouts  a  front-row 
fan  when  the  Giants  come  in  for  their  seventh  inning,  and  there 
really  is  something  doing  and  we  score  once.  Smiling  Larry  Doyle 
gets  his  chance  as  a  pinch  hitter  here  too,  but  it's  too  tight  a  pinch 
for  him  and  out  he  goes  on  a  pop  fly.  So  the  one  run  is  all  there 
is  to  it. 


SIMPLE  NARRATIVE  283 


Gloom  descends  once  more.  People  begin  to  get  quarrelsome. 
They  would  just  love  a  disputed  decision  to  fight  about.  There 
being  none,  some  of  them  fight  anyhow.  There's  a  beautiful  row 
over  in  the  right  field  bleachers,  but  a  fat  cop  climbs  the  rail  and 
nips  it  in  the  bud.  Meanwhile  nobody  can  hit  three-fingered 
Brown.  With  three  feeble  attempts  to  do  so  the  last  hope  expires. 
The  Cubs,  now  champions,  gallop  joyfully  from  the  field.  That 
one  sad  third  inning  did  it  all. 

—  The  Sun,  New  York. 


A    TRUE    RELATION 

OF    THE 

APPARITION   OF   ONE   MRS.   VEAL 

THE  NEXT  DAY  AFTER  HER  DEATH 

TO    ONE 

MRS.    BARGRAVE 

AT 

CANTERBURY,   THE  STH   OF   SEPTEMBER   1705 


285 


THE   PREFACE 

THIS  relation  is  matter  of  fact,  and  attended  with  such  cir- 
cumstances as  may  induce  any  reasonable  man  to  believe  it. 
It  was  sent  by  a  gentleman,  a  justice  of  peace  at  Maidstone,  in 
Kent,  and  a  very  intelligent  person,  to  his  friend  in  London, 
as  it  is  here  worded;  which  discourse  is  attested  by  a  very 
sober  and  understanding  gentlewoman  and  kinswoman  of  the 
said  gentleman's,  who  lives  in  Canterbury,  within  a  few  doors 
of  the  house  in  which  the  within-named  Mrs.  Bargrave  lives;  who 
believes  his  kinswoman  to  be  of  so  discerning  a  spirit  as  not  to 
be  put  upon  by  any  fallacy,  and  who  positively  assured  him  that 
the  whole  matter  as  it  is  here  related  and  laid  down  is  what  is 
really  true,  and  what  she  herself  had  in  the  same  words,  as  near 
as  may  be,  from  Mrs.  Bargrave's  own  mouth,  who,  she  knows, 
had  no  reason  to  invent  and  publish  such  a  story,  nor  any  design 
to  forge  and  tell  a  lie,  being  a  woman  of  much  honesty  and 
virtue,  and  her  whole  life  a  course,  as  it  were,  of  piety.  The 
use  which  we  ought  to  make  of  it  is  to  consider  that  there  is  a 
life  to  come  after  this,  and  a  just  God  who  will  retribute  to 
every  one  according  to  the  deeds  done  in  the  body,  and  therefore 
to  reflect  upon  our  past  course  of  life  we  have  led  in  the  world; 
that  our  time  is  short  and  uncertain ;  and  that  if  we  would  escape 
the  punishment  of  the  ungodly  and  receive  the  reward  of  the 
righteous,  which  is  the  laying  hold  of  eternal  life,  we  ought,  for 
the  time  to  come,  to  return  to  God  by  a  speedy  repentance, 
ceasing  to  do  evil  and  learning  to  do  well,  to  seek  after  God 
early,  if  haply  He  may  be  found  of  us,  and  lead  such  lives  for 
the  future  as  may  be  well  pleasing  in  His  sight. 


287 


A  RELATION  OF  THE  APPARITION  OF    MRS.  VEAL 

DANIEL    DEFOE 

THIS  thing  is  so  rare  in  all  its  circumstances,  and  on  so  good 
authority,  that  my  reading  and  conversation  has  not  given  me  any- 
thing like  it.  It  is  fit  to  gratify  the  most  ingenious  and  serious 
inquirer.  Mrs.  Bargrave  is  the  person  to  whom  Mrs.  Veal  ap- 
peared after  her  death ;  she  is  my  intimate  friend,  and  I  can  avouch 
for  her  reputation  for  these  last  fifteen  or  sixteen  years,  on  my  own 
knowledge;  and  I  can  confirm  the  good  character  she  had  from 
her  youth  to  the  time  of  my  acquaintance;  though  since  this  re- 
lation she  is  calumniated  by  some  people  that  are  friends  to  the 
brother  of  Mrs.  Veal  who  appeared,  who  think  the  relation  of 
this  appearance  to  be  a  reflection,  and  endeavour  what  they  can 
to  blast  Mrs.  Bargrave's  reputation,  and  to  laugh  the  story  out  of 
countenance.  But  by  the  circumstances  thereof,  and  the  cheerful 
disposition  of  Mrs.  Bargrave,  notwithstanding  the  unheard-of 
ill-usage  of  a  very  wicked  husband,  there  is  not  the  least  sign  of 
dejection  in  her  face;  nor  did  I  ever  hear  her  let  fall  a  desponding 
or  murmuring  expression ;  nay,  not  when  actually  under  her  hus- 
band's barbarity,  which  I  have  been  witness  to,  and  several  other 
persons  of  undoubted  reputation. 

Now  you  must  know  Mrs.  Veal  was  a  maiden  gentlewoman 
of  about  thirty  years  of  age,  and  for  some  years  last  past  had  been 
troubled  with  fits,  which  were  perceived  coming  on  her  by  her 
going  off  from  her  discourse  very  abruptly  to  some  impertinence* 
She  was  maintained  by  an  only  brother,  and  kept  his  house  in 
Dover.  She  was  a  very  pious  woman,  and  her  brother  a  very  sober 
man,  to  all  appearance;  but  now  he  does  all  he  can  to  null  or 
quash  the  story.  Mrs.  Veal  was  intimately  acquainted  with  Mrs. 
Bargrave  from  her  childhood.  Mrs.  Veal's  circumstances  were 
then  mean ;  her  father  did  not  take  care  of  his  children  as  he  ought, 
so  that  they  were  exposed  to  hardships;  and  Mrs.  Bargrave  in 
u  289 


290  ENGLISH   COMPOSITION 

those  days  had  as  unkind  a  father,  though  she  wanted  neither 
for  food  nor  clothing,  while  Mrs.  Veal  wanted  for  both ;  so  that  it 
was  in  the  power  of  Mrs.  Bargrave  to  be  very  much  her  friend  in 
several  instances,  which  mightily  endeared  Mrs.  Veal;  insomuch 
that  she  would  often  say,  "  Mrs.  Bargrave,  you  are  not  only  the  best, 
but  the  only  friend  I  have  in  the  world;  and  no  circumstance 
in  life  shall  ever  dissolve  my  friendship."  They  would  often  con- 
dole each  other's  adverse  fortune,  and  read  together  Drelincourt 
upon  Death,  and  other  good  books;  and  so,  like  two  Christian 
friends,  they  comforted  each  other  under  their  sorrow. 

Some  time  after,  Mr.  Veal's  friends  got  him  a  place  in  the 
Custom  House  at  Dover,  which  occasioned  Mrs.  Veal,  by  little 
and  little,  to  fall  off  from  her  intimacy  with  Mrs.  Bargrave,  though 
there  was  never  any  such  thing  as  a  quarrel;  but  an  indifferency 
came  on  by  degrees,  till  at  last  Mrs.  Bargrave  had  not  seen  her  in 
two  years  and  a  half;  though  above  a  twelvemonth  of  the  time 
Mrs.  Bargrave  had  been  absent  from  Dover,  and  this  last  half- 
year  had  been  in  Canterbury  about  two  months  of  the  time,  dwell- 
ing in  a  house  of  her  own. 

In  this  house,  on  the  8th  of  September  last,  viz.  1705,  she  was  sit- 
ting alone,  in  the  forenoon,  thinking  over  her  unfortunate  life,  and 
arguing  herself  into  a  due  resignation  to  Providence,  though  her 
condition  seemed  hard.  "And,"  she  said,  "I  have  been  provided 
for  hitherto,  and  doubt  not  but  I  shall  be  still ;  and  am  well  satis- 
fied that  my  afflictions  shall  end  when  it  is  most  fit  for  me;"  and 
then  took  up  her  sewing-work  which  she  had  -no  sooner  done  but 
she  hears  a  knocking  at  the  door.  She  went  to  see  who  it  was  there, 
and  this  proved  to  be  Mrs.  Veal,  her  old  friend,  who  was  in  a 
riding-habit:  at  that  moment  of  time  the  clock  struck  twelve  at 
noon. 

j  "Madam,"  says  Mrs.  Bargrave,  "I  am  surprised  to  see  you, 
you  have  been  so  long  a  stranger;"  but  told  her  she  was  glad  to 
see  her,  and  offered  to  salute  her,  which  Mrs.  Veal  complied  with, 
till  their  lips  almost  touched;  and  then  Mrs.  Veal  drew  her  hand 
across  her  own  eyes  and  said,  "  I  am  not  very  well,"  and  so  waived 
it.  She  told  Mrs.  Bargrave  she  was  going  a  journey,  and  had  a 
great  mind  to  see  her  first.  "But,"  says  Mrs.  Bargrave,  "how 
came  you  to  take  a  journey  alone  ?  I  am  amazed  at  it,  because  I 


SIMPLE   NARRATIVE 


29l 


know  you  have  so  fond  a  brother."  "  Oh,"  says  Mrs.  Veal,  "  I 
gave  my  brother  the  slip,  and  came  away,  because  I  had  so  great 
a  desire  to  see  you  before  I  took  my  journey."  So  Mrs.  Bargrave 
went  in  with  her  into  another  room  within  the  first,  and  Mrs.  Veal 
set  her  down  in  an  elbow-chair,  in  which  Mrs.  Bargrave  was  sitting 
when  she  heard  Mrs.  Veal  knock.  Then  says  Mrs.  Veal,  "My 
dear  friend,  I  am  come  to  renew  our  old  friendship  again,  and  beg 
your  pardon  for  my  breach  of  it ;  and  if  you  can  forgive  me,  you 
are  one  of  the  best  of  women."  "  Oh,"  says  Mrs.  Bargrave, 
"don't  mention  such  a  thing;  I  have  not  had  an  uneasy  thought 
about  it;  I  can  easily  forgive  it."  "  What  did  you  think  of  me?" 
said  Mrs.  Veal.  Says  Mrs.  Bargrave,  "  I  thought  you  were  like 
the  rest  of  the  world,  and  that  prosperity  had  made  you  forget 
yourself  and  me."  Then  Mrs.  Veal  reminded  Mrs.  Bargrave  of 
the  many  friendly  offices  she  did  in  her  former  days,  and  much 
of  the  conversation  they  had  with  each  other  in  the  time  of  their 
adversity;  what  books  they  read,  and  what  comfort  in  particular 
they  received  from  Drelincourt's  Book  of  Death,  which  was  the 
best,  she  said,  on  that  subject  ever  wrote.  She  also  mentioned  Dr. 
Sherlock,  and  two  Dutch  books  which  were  translated,  wrote  upon 
death,  and  several  others ;  but  Drelincourt,  she  said,  had  the  clearest 
notions  of  death  and  of  the  future  state  of  any  who  had  handled 
that  subject.  Then  she  asked  Mrs.  Bargrave  whether  she  had 
Drelincourt.  She  said,  "Yes."  Says  Mrs.  Veal,  "Fetch  it." 
And  so  Mrs.  Bargrave  goes  upstairs  and  brings  it  down.  Says 
Mrs.  Veal,  "Dear  Mrs.  Bargrave,  if  the  eyes  of  our  faith  were  as 
open  as  the  eyes  of  our  body,  we  should  see  numbers  of  angels 
about  us  for  our  guard.  The  notions  we  have  of  heaven  now  are 
nothing  like  what  it  is,  as  Drelincourt  says.  Therefore  be  com- 
forted under  your  afflictions,  and  believe  that  the  Almighty  has 
a  particular  regard  to  you,  and  that  your  afflictions  are  marks  of 
God's  favour;  and  when  they  have  done  the  business  they  are  sent 
for,  they  shall  be  removed  from  you.  And  believe  me,  my  dear 
friend,  believe  what  I  say  to  you,  one  minute  of  future  happiness 
will  infinitely  reward  you  for  all  your  sufferings ;  for  I  can  never 
believe"  (and  claps  her  hand  upon  her  knee  with  great  earnestness, 
which  indeed  ran  through  most  of  her  discourse)  "  that  ever  God 
will  suffer  you  to  spend  all  your  days  in  this  afflicted  state ;  but  be 


292  ENGLISH  COMPOSITION 

assured  that  your  afflictions  shall  leave  you,  or  you  them,  in  a  short 
time."  She  spake  in  that  pathetical  and  heavenly  manner,  that 
Mrs.  Bargrave  wept  several  times,  she  was  so  deeply  affected 
with  it. 

Then  Mrs.  Veal  mentioned  Dr.  Horneck's  Ascetick,  at  the  end 
of  which  he  gives  an  account  of  the  lives  of  the  primitive  Christians. 
Their  pattern  she  recommended  to  our  imitation,  and  said  their 
conversation  was  not  like  this  of  our  age;  "for  now,"  says  she, 
"  there  is  nothing  but  frothy,  vain  discourse,  which  is  far  different 
from  theirs.  Theirs  was  to  edification,  and  to  build  one  another 
up  in  faith ;  so  that  they  were  not  as  we  are,  nor  are  we  as  they 
were;  but,"  said  she,  "we  might  do  as  they  did.  There  was  a 
hearty  friendship  among  them ;  but  where  is  it  now  to  be  found  ?  " 
Says  Mrs.  Bargrave,  "  'Tis  hard  indeed  to  find  a  true  friend  in  these 
days."  Says  Mrs.  Veal,  "Mr.  Norris  has  a  fine  copy  of  verses, 
called  Friendship  in  Perfection,  which  I  wonderfully  admire. 
Have  you  seen  the  book?"  says  Mrs.  Veal.  "No,"  says  Mrs. 
Bargrave,  "  but  I  have  the  verses  of  my  own  writing  out."  "  Have 
you?"  says  Mrs.  Veal;  "then  fetch  them."  Which  she  did  from 
above-stairs,  and  offered  them  to  Mrs.  Veal  to  read,  who  refused, 
and  waived  the  thing,  saying,  holding  down  her  head  would  make 
it  ache;  and  then  desired  Mrs.  Bargrave  to  read  them  to  her, 
which  she  did.  As  they  were  admiring  Friendship  Mrs.  Veal  said, 
"Dear  Mrs.  Bargrave,  I  shall  love  you  forever."  In  the  verses 
there  is  twice  used  the  word  Elysian.  "  Ah ! "  says  Mrs.  Veal, 
"  these  poets  have  such  names  for  heaven ! "  She  would  often  draw 
her  hand  across  her  own  eyes  and  say,  "  Mrs.  Bargrave,  don't 
you  think  I  am  mightily  impaired  by  my  fits?"  "No,"  says 
Mrs.  Bargrave,  "  I  think  you  look  as  well  as  ever  I  knew  you." 

After  all  this  discourse,  which  the  apparition  put  in  words 
much  finer  than  Mrs.  Bargrave  said  she  could  pretend  to,  and  was 
much  more  than  she  can  remember  (for  it  cannot  be  thought  that 
an  hour  and  three-quarters'  conversation  could  all  be  retained, 
though  the  main  of  it  she  thinks  she  does),  she  said  to  Mrs.  Bar- 
grave  she  would  have  her  write  a  letter  to  her  brother,  and  tell  him 
she  would  have  him  give  rings  to  such  and  such,  and  that  there  was 
a  purse  of  gold  in  her  cabinet,  and  that  she  would  have  two  broad 
pieces  given  to  her  cousin  Watson. 


SIMPLE  NARRATIVE 


293 


Talking  at  this  rate  Mrs.  Bargrave  thought  that  a  fit  was  coming 
upon  her,  and  so  placed  herself  in  a  chair  just  before  her  knees, 
to  keep  her  from  falling  to  the  ground,  if  her  fits  should  occasion 
it  (for  the  elbow-chair,  she  thought,  would  keep  her  from  falling 
on  either  side) ;  and  to  divert  Mrs.  Veal,  as  she  thought,  she  took 
hold  of  her  gown-sleeve  several  times  and  commended  it.  Mrs. 
Veal  told  her  it  was  a  scoured  silk,  and  newly  made  up.  But  for 
all  this,  Mrs.  Veal  persisted  in  her  request,  and  told  Mrs.  Bargrave 
she  must  not  deny  her;  and  she  would  have  her  tell  her  brother 
all  their  conversation  when  she  had  an  opportunity.  "  Dear 
Mrs.  Veal,"  said  Mrs.  Bargrave,  "  this  seems  so  impertinent  that 
I  cannot  tell  how  to  comply  with  it;  and  what  a  mortifying  story 
will  our  conversation  be  to  a  young  gentleman!"  "Well,"  says 
Mrs.  Veal,  "  I  must  not  be  denied."  "  Why,"  says  Mrs.  Bargrave, 
"  'tis  much  better,  methinks,  to  do  it  yourself."  "No,"  says  Mrs. 
Veal,  "  though  it  seems  impertinent  to  you  now,  you  will  see  more 
reason  for  it  hereafter."  Mrs.  Bargrave  then,  to  satisfy  her  im- 
portunity, was  going  to  fetch  a  pen  and  ink;  but  Mrs.  Veal  said, 
"  Let  it  alone  now,  and  do  it  when  I  am  gone ;  but  you  must  be  sure 
to  do  it ; "  which  was  one  of  the  last  things  she  enjoined  her  at  part- 
ing; and  so  she  promised  her. 

Then  Mrs.  Veal  asked  for  Mrs.  Bargrave's  daughter.  She  said 
she  was  not  at  home,  "but  if  you  have  a  mind  to  see  her,"  says 
Mrs.  Bargrave,  "  I'll  send  for  her."  "  Do,"  says  Mrs.  Veal.  On 
which  she  left  her,  and  went  to  a  neighbour's  to  send  for  her;  and 
by  the  time  Mrs.  F.argrave  was  returning,  Mrs.  Veal  was  got  with- 
out the  door  in  the  street,  in  the  face  of  the  beast-market  on  a 
Saturday  (which  is  market-day),  and  stood  ready  to  part  as  soon 
as  Mrs.  Bargrave  came  to  her.  She  asked  her  why  she  was  in 
such  haste.  She  said  she  must  be  going,  though  perhaps  she  might 
not  go  her  journey  until  Monday;  and  told  Mrs.  Bargrave  she 
hoped  she  should  see  her  again  at  her  cousin  Watson's  before  she 
went  whither  she  was  a-going.  Then  she  said  she  would  take  her 
leave  of  her,  and  walked  from  Mrs.  Bargrave  in  her  view,  till  a 
turning  interrupted  the  sight  of  her,  which  was  three-quarters 
aftei  one  in  the  afternoon. 

Mrs.  Veal  died  the  yth  of  September,  at  twelve  o'clock  at  noon, 
of  her  fits,  and  had  not  above  four  hours'  senses  before  death, 


294 


EXGLISH   COMPOSITION 


in  which  time  she  received  the  sacrament.  The  next  day  after 
Mrs.  Veal's  appearance,  being  Sunday,  Mrs.  Bargrave  was  mightily 
indisposed  with  a  cold  and  a  sore  throat,  that  she  could  not  go  out 
that  day;  but  on  Monday  morning  she  sends  a  person  to  Captain 
Watson's  to  know  if  Mrs.  Veal  were  there.  They  wondered  at 
Mrs.  Bargrave's  inquiry,  and  sent  her  word  that  she  was  not  there, 
nor  was  expected.  At  this  answer,  Mrs.  Bargrave  told  the  maid 
she  had  certainly  mistook  the  name,  or  made  some  blunder.  And 
though  she  was  ill,  she  put  on  her  hood,  and  went  herself  to  Captain 
Watson's,  though  she  knew  none  of  the  family,  to  see  if  Mrs.  Veal 
was  there  or  not.  They  said  they  wondered  at  her  asking,  for  that 
she  had  not  been  in  town ;  they  were  sure,  if  she  had,  she  would 
have  been  there.  Says  Mrs.  Bargrave,  "  I  am  sure  she  was  with 
me  on  Saturday  almost  two  hours."  They  said  it  was  impossible ; 
for  they  must  have  seen  her,  if  she  had.  In  comes  Captain  Watson 
while  they  are  in  dispute,  and  said  that  Mrs.  Veal  was  certainly 
dead,  and  her  escutcheons  were  making.  This  strangely  sur- 
prised Mrs.  Bargrave,  who  went  to  the  person  immediately  who 
had  the  care  of  them,  and  found  it  true.  Then  she  related  the 
whole  story  to  Captain  Watson's  family,  and  what  gown  she  had 
on,  and  how  striped,  and  that  Mrs.  Veal  told  her  it  was  scoured. 
Then  Mrs.  Watson  cried  out,  "  You  have  seen  her  indeed,  for  none 
knew  but  Mrs.  Veal  and  myself  that  the  gown  was  scoured." 
And  Mrs.  Watson  owned  that  she  described  the  gown  exactly; 
"for,"  said  she,  "I  helped  her  to  make  it  up."  This  Mrs. 
Watson  blazed  all  about  the  town,  and  avouched  the  demonstra- 
tion of  the  truth  of  Mrs.  Bargrave's  seeing  Mrs.  Veal's  apparition; 
and  Captain  Watson  carried  two  gentlemen  immediately  to  Mrs. 
Bargrave's  house  to  hear  the  relation  from  her  own  mouth.  And 
then  it  spread  so  fast  that  gentlemen  and  persons  of  quality,  the 
judicious  and  sceptical  part  of  the  world,  flocked  in  upon  her,  which 
at  last  became  such  a  task  that  she  was  forced  to  go  out  of  the  way ; 
for  they  were  in  general  extremely  satisfied  of  the  truth  of  the  thing, 
and  plainly  saw  that  Mrs.  Bargrave  was  no  hypochondriac,  for 
she  always  appears  with  such  a  cheerful  air  and  pleasing  mien, 
that  she  has  gained  the  favour  and  esteem  of  all  the  gentry,  and 
'tis  thought  a  great  favour  if  they  can  but  get  the  relation  from 
her  own  mouth.  I  should  have  told  you  before  that  Mrs.  Veal 


SIMPLE   NARRATIVE  295 

told  Mrs.  Bargrave  that  her  sister  and  brother-in-law  were  just 
come  down  from  London  to  see  her.  Says  Mrs.  Bargrave,  "  How 
came  you  to  order  matters  so  strangely  ?  "  "  It  could  not  be  helped," 
says  Mrs.  Veal.  And  her  sister  and  brother  did  come  to  see 
her,  and  entered  the  town  of  Dover  just  as  Mrs.  Veal  was  expiring. 
Mrs.  Bargrave  asked  her  whether  she  would  drink  some  tea.  Says 
Mrs.  Veal,  "  I  do  not  care  if  I  do ;  but  I'll  warrant  this  mad  fellow  " 
(meaning  Mrs.  Bargrave's  husband)  "has  broke  all  your  trinkets." 
"But,"  says  Mrs.  Bargrave,  "I'll  get  something  to  drink  in  for  all 
that."  But  Mrs.  Veal  waived  it,  and  said,  "It  is  no  matter;  let 
it  alone; "-and  so  it  passed. 

All  the  time  I  sat  with  Mrs.  Bargrave,  which  was  some  hours, 
she  recollected  fresh  sayings  of  Mrs.  Veal.  And  one  material 
thing  more  she  told  Mrs.  Bargrave  —  that  old  Mr.  Breton  allowed 
Mrs.  Veal  ten  pounds  a  year,  which  was  a  secret,  and  unknown 
to  Mrs.  Bargrave  till  Mrs.  Veal  told  it  her.  Mrs.  Bargrave  never 
varies  in  her  story,  which  puzzles  those  who  doubt  of  the  truth,  or 
are  unwilling  to  believe  it.  A  servant  in  a  neighbour's  yard  ad- 
joining to  Mrs.  Bargrave's  house  heard  her  talking  to  somebody 
an  hour  of  the  time  Mrs.  Veal  was  with  her.  Mrs.  Bargrave  went 
out  to  her  next  neighbour's  the  very  moment  she  parted  with  Mrs. 
Veal,  and  told  what  ravishing  conversation  she  had  with  an  old 
friend,  and  told  the  whole  of  it.  Drelincourt's  Book  of  Death  is, 
since  this  happened,  bought  up  strangely.  And  it  is  to  be  observed 
that,  notwithstanding  all  this  trouble  and  fatigue  Mrs.  Bargrave  has 
undergone  upon  this  account,  she  never  took  the  value  of  a  farth- 
ing, nor  suffered  her  daughter  to  take  anything  of  anybody,  and 
therefore  can  have  no  interest  in  telling  the  story. 

But  Mr.  Veal  does  what  he  can  to  stifle  the  matter,  and  said  he 
would  see  Mrs.  Bargrave;  but  yet  it  is  certain  matter  of  fact  that 
he  has  been  at  Captain  Watson's  since  the  death  of  his  sister,  and 
yet  never  went  near  Mrs.  Bargrave ;  and  some  of  his  friends  report 
her  to  be  a  great  liar,  and  that  she  knew  of  Mr.  Breton's  ten  pounds 
a  year.  But  the  person  who  pretends  to  say  so  has  the  reputation 
of  a  notorious  liar  among  persons  whom  I  know  to  be  of  undoubted 
repute.  Now,  Mr.  Veal  is  more  a  gentleman  than  to  say  she  lies, 
but  says  a  bad  husband  has  crazed  her;  but  she  needs  only  to 
present  herself,  and  it  will  effectually  confute  that  pretence.  Mr. 


296  ENGLISH   COMPOSITION 

Veal  says  he  asked  his  sister  on  her  deathbed  whether  she  had  a 
mind  to  dispose  of  anything,  and  she  said  No.  Now,  the  things 
which  Mrs.  Veal's  apparition  would  have  disposed  of  were  so 
trifling,  and  nothing  of  justice  aimed  at  in  their  disposal,  that  the 
design  of  it  appears  to  me  to  be  only  in  order  to  make  Mrs.  Bar- 
grave  so  to  demonstrate  the  truth  of  her  appearance,  as  to  satisfy 
the  world  of  the  reality  thereof  as  to  what  she  had  seen  and  heard, 
and  to  secure  her  reputation  among  the  reasonable  and  under- 
standing part  of  mankind.  And  then  again,  Mr.  Veal  owns  that 
there  was  a  purse  of  gold ;  but  it  was  not  found  in  her  cabinet,  but 
in  a  comb-box.  This  looks  improbable;  for  that  Mrs.  Watson 
owned  that  Mrs.  Veal  was  so  very  careful  of  the  key  of  her  cabinet, 
that  she  would  trust  nobody  with  it ;  and  if  so,  no  doubt  she  would 
not  trust  her  gold  out  of  it.  And  Mrs.  Veal's  often  drawing  her 
hand  over  her  eyes,  and  asking  Mrs.  Bargrave  whether  her  fits 
had  not  impaired  her,  looks  to  me  as  if  she  did  it  on  purpose  to 
remind  Mrs.  Bargrave  of  her  fits,  to  prepare  her  not  to  think  it 
strange  that  she  should  put  her  upon  writing  to  her  brother  to 
dispose  of  rings  and  gold,  which  looked  so  much  like  a  dying  per- 
son's request;  and  it  took  accordingly  with  Mrs.  Bargrave,  as  the 
effect  of  her  fits  coming  upon  her;  and  was  one  of  the  many  in- 
stances of  her  wonderful  love  to  her,  and  care  of  her,  that  she  should 
not  be  affrighted;  which  indeed  appears  in  her  whole  management, 
particularly  in  her  coming  to  her  in  the  daytime,  waiving  the  salu- 
tation, and  when  she  was  alone ;  and  then  the  manner  of  her  part- 
ing, to  prevent  a  second  attempt  to  salute  her. 

Now,  why  Mr.  Veal  should  think  this  relation  a  reflection 
(as  'tis  plain  he  does  by  his  endeavouring  to  stifle  it)  I  can't  imagine, 
because  the  generality  believe  her  to  be  a  good  spirit,  her  discourse 
was  so  heavenly.  Her  two  great  errands  were  to  comfort  Mrs. 
Bargrave  in  her  affliction,  and  to  ask  her  forgiveness  for  her  breach 
of  friendship,  and  with  a  pious  discourse  to  encourage  her.  So 
that,  after  all,  to  suppose  that  Mrs.  Bargrave  could  hatch  such  an 
invention  as  this  from  Friday  noon  till  Saturday  noon  (s-pposing 
that  she  knew  of  Mrs.  Veal's  death  the  very  first  moment),  without 
jumbling  circumstances,  and  without  any  interest  too,  she  must  be 
more  witty,  fortunate,  and  wicked  too,  than  any  indifferent  per- 
son, I  dare  say,  will  allow.  I  asked  Mrs.  Bargrave  several  times 


SIMPLE  NARRATIVE 


297 


if  she  was  sure  she  felt  the  gown.  She  answered  modestly,  "  If  my 
senses  be  to  be  relied  on,  I  am  sure  of  it."  I  asked  her  if  she  heard 
a  sound  when  she  clapped  her  hand  upon  her  knee.  She  said 
she  did  not  remember  she  did ;  and  she  said,  "  She  appeared  to  be 
as  much  a  substance  as  I  did,  who  talked  with  her;  and  I  may," 
said  she,  "  be  as  soon  persuaded  that  your  apparition  is  talking  to 
me  now  as  that  I  did  not  really  see  her ;  for  I  was  under  no  man- 
ner of  fear;  I  received  her  as  a  friend,  and  parted  with  her  as  such. 
I  would  not,"  says  she,  "give  one  farthing  to  make  any  one  believe 
it ;  I  have  no  interest  in  it.  Nothing  but  trouble  is  entailed  upon 
me  for  a  long  time,  for  aught  I  know;  and  had  it  not  come  to  light 
by  accident,  it  would  never  have  been  made  public."  But  now 
she  says  she  will  make  her  own  private  use  of  it,  and  keep  herself 
out  of  the  way  as  much  as  she  can ;  and  so  she  has  done  since.  She 
says  she  had  a  gentleman  who  came  thirty  miles  to  her  to  hear  the 
relation,  and  that  she  had  told  it  to  a  room  full  of  people  at  a  time. 
Several  particular  gentlemen  have  had  the  story  from  Mrs.  Bar- 
grave's  own  mouth. 

This  thing  has  very  much  affected  me,  and  I  am  as  well  satisfied 
as  I  am  of  the  best  grounded  matter  of  fact.  And  why  we  should 
dispute  matter  of  fact  because  we  cannot  solve  things  of  which 
we  have  no  certain  or  demonstrative  notions,  seems  strange  to  me. 
Mrs.  Bargrave's  authority  and  sincerity  alone  would  have  been 
undoubted  in  any  other  case. 


CHAPTER  XII 

THE   STORY 

A  STORY  is  a  narrative  in  which  the  causal  relation  between  events 
is  made  very  apparent.  In  life,  this  causal  relation  between  events 
often,  but  not  always,  exists.  In  a  story  it  must  not  only  exist,  it 
must  be  obvious.  For  example,  a  reporter  "writes  up"  an  inter- 
view with  a  foreigner  in  which  is  recounted,  in  a  general  fashion, 
the  latter's  experiences  upon  an  ocean  voyage.  The  resulting 
news  article  will  have  no  plot ;  that  is,  no  obvious  set  of  causal  re- 
lations between  events,  and  so  will  be  simple  narrative.  But  a 
magazine  writer  chances  to  read  the  interview,  and  sees  mention 
there  made  of  an  interesting  American  girl  with  whom  the  afore- 
said foreigner  has  been  upon  friendly  relations  during  the  voyage. 
Thereupon  he  alters  names,  supposes  that  the  visiting  foreigner 
had  taken  passage  in  order  to  win  the  lady  for  his  wife,  creates 
a  fitting  climax,  and  thus  artificially  throws  the  given  events  into 
a  causal  relationship  each  to  each.  This  process  is,  simply,  the 
invention  of  a  plot.  The  plot  of  a  story  is  merely  the  thread  of 
relationship  which  connects  the  events,  and  a  narrative  with  a  plot 
is  a  story.  Naturally,  a  basis  of  actual  happening,  as  in  the 
hypothetical  case  just  given,  is  not  required.  It  is  sometimes  ad- 
vantageous. Indeed,  the  requisite  heightening  of  causal  relation- 
ships is  occasionally  found  in  life,  so  that  we  have  only  to  write 
it  down  in  order  to  get  what  is  called  "a  true  story."  But  much 
more  frequently  the  happenings  and  their  relationship  are  alike 
a  product  of  the  imagination,  the  whole  process  is  artificial,  not 
natural,  and  we  have  —  fiction.  In  truth,  the  story-teller  draws 
from  real  or  imagined  life  as  he  pleases  —  but  he  must  get  a  plot. 

Making  a  plot,  however,  is  the  least  part  of  story-telling.     The 

best  plots  were,  most  of  them,  made  long  ago,  and  it-  is  often  far 

better  to  adapt  an  old  plot  to  modern  conditions  than  to  strain 

probability  in  the  attempt  to  create  something  new.     The  energy 

298 


THE  STORY  299 

of  the  story-teller,  and  particularly  the  energy  of  the  novice  at  the 
trade,  will  be  expended  much  more  profitably  upon  a  harder  prob- 
lem: Given  a  plot,  how  to  make  from  it  an  interesting  and  con- 
vincing story.  The  operation  is  never  easy.  It  requires  imagina- 
tion, knowledge  of  life,  and  a  vocabulary.  It  also  requires  the 
application  in  a  high  degree  of  the  three  chief  principles  of  rhetoric, 
and,  since  it  is  in  learning  to  control  these  principles  that  the  story- 
teller will  find  mere  advice  of  the  greatest  value,  tvith  Unity, 
Coherence,  and  Emphasis  we  will  begin. 

First  for  Unity.  "  Sticking  to  the  subject "  is  comparatively  easy 
in  a  story,  but  the  unity  which  should  result  is  much  more  likely 
to  appear  if  you  make  sure  before  you  begin  that  your  plot  does  not 
contain  "another  story."  It  is  a  fallacy,  too  widespread  among 
beginners  in  story-writing,  that  the  more  plot  the  easier  it  is  for  the 
writer.  Nothing  could  be  more  erroneous.  It  is  hard  enough  to  tell 
one  story  in  a  given  space;  it  is  usually  impracticable  to  tell  two. 
One  unsuccessful  tale  could  be  made  from  such  a  plot  as  the  follow- 
ing: An  American  quarrels  with  a  Frenchman  in  a  Parisian  cafe, 
is  challenged,  fights  a  duel,  and  kills  his  opponent.  Stricken  with 
remorse,  he,  nevertheless,  endeavors  to  escape  from  the  police, 
is  sheltered  in  the  chateau  of,  a  friend,  and  hides  from  his  pursuers 
in  a  secret  chamber  which  he  discovers  by  accident.  When  he 
thinks  danger  of  pursuit  is  over,  he  tries  to  get  out,  finds  that  he  is 
locked  in  behind  a  sound-proof  panel  —  and  escapes  only  by  a 
fortunate  accident.  But  if  this  plot  should  be  divided,  the  two 
plots  resulting  would  have  a  much  greater  likelihood  of  success, 
for  each  would  be  given  elbow  room,  and  you  would  avoid  an  error 
which  is  quite  as  confusing  as  the  mistaken  combination  of  two 
paragraph-thoughts  in  one  paragraph. 

Unity  of  plot,  however,  has  a  still  more  especial  significance  in 
story-writing.  It  depends  upon  "sticking  to  the  subject,"  but 
it  is  also  dependent  upon  a  proper  manipulation  of  that  subject. 
A  story,  potentially,  is  of  very  nearly  indefinite  length.  If  you 
wish,  you  can  extend  its  remote  beginnings  and  its  ultimate 
results  further  back  than  the  birth,  further  on  than  the  grave  of 
the  hero.  Conversely,  it  can  be,  not  indefinitely,  but,  as  a  rule, 
very  materially  shortened.  We  are  inspired  to  write  of  the  revenge 
which  an  Italian  noble  took  upon  his  friend.  Where  begin? 


300  EXGLISH   COMPOSITION 

Where  end?  The  early  history  of  Venice,  the  remote  beginnings 
of  the  feud  may  be  brought  into  the  story,  the  discovery  of  the  bones 
of  the  murdered  man  by  his  great  grandchildren  may  be  included 
to  end  it.  The  principal  countries  of  Europe  may  be  drawn  upon 
for  scenes  in  the  flight  of  the  suspected  murderer.  But  Poe,  as  one 
sees  in  the  Cask  of  A  montillado,  begins  his  story  in  the  hour  of  the 
revenge,  and  ends  it  with  the  consummation.  He  confines  it  not 
merely  to  one  city,  but  to  one  place.  This  is  an  extreme  example, 
perhaps;  certainly  such  perfect  unity  of  place  and  time  is  not 
always  possible,  nor  always  advisable.  And  yet,  in  every  instance, 
the  chances  for  success  will  be  very  much  increased  if  the  story- 
teller, before  he  begins  to  write,  will  restrict,  as  far  as  probability 
will  let  him,  both  the  scene  and  the  time  of  the  actions  he  is  to 
recount.  Sometimes  this  may  be  accomplished  by  briefly  ex- 
plaining all  the  scenes  of  the  story  which  belong  in  a  time  earlier 
or  later  than  the  main  action.  Often  enough  the  narrator,  who 
is  absolute  monarch  of  his  story,  can  make  one  scene  and  time  do 
for  actions  which,  in  his  original  conception,  happened  far  apart. 
So  long  as  the  tale  remains  probable,  every  simplification  of  this 
kind  will  increase  the  unity,  and  so  the  success,  of  his  story.  "  Ah ! 
passons  au  deluge,"  Racine  said  in  the  course  of  a  certain  story, 
a  remark  which  may  be  freely  translated  into,  "  Don't  begin  before 
the  Flood!" 

THE  CASK  OF  AMONTILLADO  l 

EDGAR  ALLAN   POE 

The  thousand  injuries  of  Fortunato  I  had  borne  as  I  best  could ; 
but  when  he  ventured  upon  insult,  I  vowed  revenge.  You,  who 
so  well  know  the  nature  of  my  soul,  will  not  suppose,  however, 
that  I  gave  utterance  to  a  threat.  At  length  I  would  be  avenged; 
this  was  a  point  definitely  settled  —  but  the  very  definiteness  with 
which  it  was  resolved  precluded  the  idea  of  risk.  I  must  not  only 
punish,  but  punish  with  impunity.  A  wrong  is  unredressed  when 
retribution  overtakes  its  redresser.  It  is  equally  unredressed  when 

1  Reprinted,  by  the  kind  permission  of  the  publishers,  from  the  edition 
of  Poe  published  by  G.  P.  Putnam's  Sons,  New  York. 


THE  STORY 


3OI 


the  avenger  fails  to  make  himself  felt  as  such  to  him  who  has  done 
the  wrong. 

It  must  be  understood  that  neither  by  wordjnor  deed  had  I  given 
Fortunato  cause  to  doubt  my  good-will.  I  continued,  as  was  my 
wont,  to  smile  in  his  face,  and  he  did  not  perceive  that  my  smile  now 
was  at  the  thought  of  his  immolation. 

He  had  a  weak  point  —  this  Fortunato  —  although  in  other 
regards  he  was  a  man  to  be  respected  and  even  feared.  He  prided 
himself  on  his  connoisseurship  in  wine.  Few  Italians  have  the 
true  virtuoso  spirit.  For  the  most  part  their  enthusiasm  is  adopted 
to  suit  the  time  and  opportunity  —  to  practise  imposture  upon  the 
British  and  Austrian  millionaires.  In  painting  and  gemmary, 
Fortunato,  like  his  countrymen,  was  a  quack,  —  but  in  the  matter 
of  old  wines  he  was  sincere.  In  this  respect  I  did  not  differ  from 
him  materially:  I  was  skilful  in  the  Italian  vintages  myself,  and 
bought  largely  whenever  I  could. 

It  was  about  dusk,  one  evening  during  the  supreme  madness 
of  the  carnival  season,  that  I  encountered  my  friend.  He  accosted 
me  with  excessive  warmth,  for  he  had  been  drinking  much.  The 
man  wore  motley.  He  had  on  a  tight-fitting  party-striped  dress, 
and  his  head  was  surmounted  by  the  conical  cap  and  bells.  I  was 
so  pleased  to  see  him  that  I  thought  I  should  never  have  done 
wringing  his  hand. 

I  said  to  him:  "My  dear  Fortunato,  you  are  luckily  met. 
How  remarkably  well  you  are  looking  to-day !  But  I  have  received 
a  pipe  of  what  passes  for  Amontillado,  and  I  have  my  doubts." 

"  How  ?  "  said  he,  "  Amontillado  ?  A  pipe  ?  Impossible !  And 
in  the  middle  of  the  carnival!" 

"  I  have  my  doubts,"  I  replied ;  "  and  I  was  silly  enough  to  pay 
the  full  Amontillado  price  without  consulting  you  in  the  matter. 
You  were  not  to  be  found,  and  I  was  fearful  of  losing  a  bargain." 

"  Amontillado ! " 

"I  have  my  doubts." 

"Amontillado !" 

"And  I  must  satisfy  them." 

"Amontillado!" 

"As  you  are  engaged,  I  am  on  my  way  to  Luchesi.  If  any  one 
has  a  critical  turn,  it  is  he.  He  will  tell  me  — 


302 


ENGLISH    COMPOSITION 


"Luchesi  cannot  tell  Amontillado  from  Sherry." 

"And  yet  some  fools  will  have  it  that  his  taste  is  a  match  for 
your  own." 

"  Come,  let  us  go." 

"Whither?" 

"To  your  vaults." 

"My  friend,  no;  I  will  not  impose  upon  your  good  nature.  I 
perceive  you  have  an  engagement.  Luchesi " 

"I  have  no  engagement  —  come." 

"  My  friend,  no.  It  is  not  the  engagement,  but  the  severe  cold 
with  which  I  perceive  you  are  afflicted.  The  vaults  are  insuffer- 
ably damp.  They  are  encrusted  with  nitre." 

"  Let  us  go,  nevertheless.  The  cold  is  merely  nothing.  Amon- 
tillado !  You  have  been  imposed  upon.  And  as  for  Luchesi, 
he  cannot  distinguish  Sherry  from  Amontillado." 

Thus  speaking,  Fortunato  possessed  himself  of  my  arm.  Putting 
on  a  mask  of  black  silk,  and  drawing  a  roquelaure  closely  about 
my  person,  I  suffered  him  to  hurry  me  to  my  palazzo. 

There  were  no  attendants  at  home;  they  had  absconded  to 
make  merry  in  honour  of  the  time.  I  had  told  them  that  I  should 
not  return  until  the  morning,  and  had  given  them  explicit  orders 
not  to  stir  from  the  house.  These  orders  were  sufficient,  I  well 
knew,  to  insure  their  immediate  disappearance,  one  and  all,  as 
soon  as  my  back  was  turned. 

I  took  from  their  sconces  two  flambeaux,  and  giving  one  to 
Fortunato,  bowed  him  through  several  suites  of  rooms  to  the 
archway  that  led  into  the  vaults.  I  passed  down  a  long  and  wind- 
ing staircase,  requesting  him  to  be  cautious  as  he  followed.  We 
came  at  length  to  the  foot  of  the  descent,  and  stood  together  on  the 
damp  ground  of  the  catacombs  of  the  Montresors. 

The  gait  of  my  friend  was  unsteady,  and  the  bells  upon  his  cap 
jingled  as  he  strode. 

"The  pipe,"  said  he. 

"It  is  farther  on,"  said  I;  "but  observe  the  white  webwork 
which  gleams  from  these  cavern  walls." 

He  turned  towards  me,  and  looked  into  my  eyes  with  two  filmy 
orbs  that  distilled  the  rheum  of  intoxication. 

"Nitre?"  he  asked  at  length. 


THE  STORY 


3°3 


"Nitre,"  I  replied.     "How  long  have  you  had  that  cough?" 

"  Ugh  !  ugh  !  ugh  !  —  ugh  !  ugh  !  ugh  !  —  ugh  !  ugh  !  ugh  !  — 
ugh  !  ugh  !  ugh  !  —  ugh  !  ugh  !  ugh  ! " 

My  poor  friend  found  it  impossible  to  reply  for  many  minutes. 

"It  is  nothing,"  he  said  at  last. 

"Come,"  I  said,  with  decision,  "we  will  go  back;  your  health 
is  precious.  You  are  rich,  respected,  admired,  beloved;  you  are 
happy,  as  once  I  was.  You  are  a  man  to  be  missed.  For  me  it  is 
no  matter.  We  will  go  back;  you  will  be  ill,  and  I  cannot  be 
responsible.  Besides,  there  is  Luchesi  — 

"Enough,"  he  said;  "the  cough  is  a  mere  nothing;  it  will  not 
kill  me.  I  shall  not  die  of  a  cough." 

"  True  —  true,"  I  replied ;  "  and,  indeed,  I  had  no  intention 
of  alarming  you  unnecessarily  —  but  you  should  use  all  proper 
caution.  A  draught  of  this  Medoc  will  defend  us  from  the  damps." 

Here  I  knocked  off  the  neck  of  a  bottle  which  I  drew  from  a  long 
row  of  its  fellows  that  lay  upon  the  mould. 

"Drink,"  I  said,  presenting  him  the  wine. 

He  raised  it  to  his  lips  with  a  leer.  He  paused  and  nodded  to 
me  familiarly,  while  his  bells  jingled. 

"I  drink,"  he  said,  "to  the  buried  that  repose  around  us." 

"And  I  to  your  long  life." 

He  again  took  my  arm,  and  we  proceeded. 

"These  vaults,"  he  said,  "are  extensive." 

"The  Montresors,"  I  replied,  "were  a  great  and  numerous 
family." 

"  I  forget  your  arms." 

"A  huge  human  foot  d'or,  in  a  field  azure;  the  foot  crushes  a 
serpent  rampant  whose  fangs  are  embedded  in  the  heel." 

"And  the  motto?" 

"  Nemo  me  impune  lacessit." 

"Good  !"  he  said. 

The  wine  sparkled  in  his  eyes  and  the  bells  jingled.  My  own 
fancy  grew  warm  with  the  Medoc.  We  had  passed  through  walls 
of  piled  bones,  with  casks  and  puncheons  intermingling,  into  the 
inmost  recesses  of  the  catacombs.  I  paused  again,  and  this  time 
I  made  bold  to  seize  Fortunate  by  an  arm  above  the  elbow. 

"The  nitre!"  I  said;    "see,  it  increases.     It  hangs  like  moss 


304  ENGLISH   COMPOSITION 

upon  the  vaults.  We  are  below  the  river's  bed.  The  drops  of 
moisture  trickle  among  the  bones.  Come,  we  will  go  back  ere 
it  is  too  late.  Your  cough 

"It  is  nothing,"  he  said;  "let  us  go  on.  But  first,  another 
draught  of  the  Medoc." 

I  broke  and  reached  him  a  flagon  of  De  Grave.  He  emptied 
it  at  a  breath.  His  eyes  flashed  with  a  fierce  light.  He  laughed, 
and  threw  the  bottle  upward  with  a  gesticulation  I  did  not  under- 
stand. 

I  looked  at  him  in  surprise.  He  repeated  the  movement  — 
a  grotesque  one. 

"You  do  not  comprehend?"  he  said. 

"Not  I,"  I  replied. 

"Then  you  are  not  of  the  brotherhood." 

"How?" 

"  You  are  not  of  the  masons." 

"Yes,  yes,"  I  said,  "yes,  yes." 

"You?     Impossible!    A  mason?" 

"A  mason,"  I  replied. 

"A  sign,"  he  said. 

"It  is  this,"  I  answered,  producing  a  trowel  from  beneath  the 
folds  of  my  roquelaure. 

"You  jest,"  he  exclaimed,  recoiling  a  few  paces.  "But  let  us 
proceed  to  the  Amontillado." 

"Be  it  so,"  I  said,  replacing  the  tool  beneath  the  cloak,  and 
again  offering  him  my  arm.  He  leaned  upon  it  heavily.  We  con- 
tinued our  route  in  search  of  the  Amontillado.  We  passed  through 
a  range  of  low  arches,  descended,  passed  on,  and,  descending  again, 
arrived  at  a  deep  crypt,  in  which  the  foulness  of  the  air  caused  our 
flambeaux  rather  to  glow  than  flame. 

At  the  most  remote  end  of  the  crypt  there  appeared  another  less 
spacious.  Its  walls  had  been  lined  with  human  remains,  piled 
to  the  vault  overhead,  in  the  fashion  of  the  great  catacombs  of 
Paris.  Three  sides  of  this  interior  crypt  were  still  ornamented  in 
this  manner.  From  the  fourth  the  bones  had  been  thrown  down, 
and  lay  promiscuously  upon  the  earth,  forming  at  one  point  a 
mound  of  some  size.  Within  the  wall  thus  exposed  by  the  dis- 
placing of  the  bones  we  perceived  a  still  interior  recess,  in  depth 


THE  STORY 


3°5 


about  four  feet,  in  width  three,  in  height  six  or  seven.  It  seemed 
to  have  been  constructed  for  no  especial  use  within  itself,  but 
formed  merely  the  interval  between  two  of  the  colossal  supports  of 
the  roof  of  the  catacombs,  and  was  backed  by  one  of  their  circum- 
scribing walls  of  solid  granite. 

It  was  in  vain  that  Fortunato,  uplifting  his  dull  torch,  endeavoured 
to  pry  into  the  depth  of  the  recess.  Its  termination  the  feeble  light 
did  not  enable  us  to  see. 

"Proceed,"  I  said;  "herein  is  the  Amontillado.  As  for  Lu- 
chesi 

"He  is  an  ignoramus,"  interrupted  my  friend,  as  he  stepped 
unsteadily  forward,  while  I  followed  immediately  at  his  heels. 
In  an  instant  he  had  reached  the  extremity  of  the*  niche,  and  find- 
ing his  progress  arrested  by  the  rock,  stood  stupidly  bewildered. 
A  moment  more  and  I  had  fettered  him  to  the  granite.  In  its 
surface  were  two  iron  staples,  distant  from  each  other  about  two 
feet,  horizontally.  From  one  of  these  depended  a  short  chain, 
from  the  other  a  padlock.  Throwing  the  links  about  his  waist, 
it  was  but  the  work  of  a  few  seconds  to  secure  it.  He  was  too  much 
astounded  to  resist.  Withdrawing  the  key,  I  stepped  back  from 
the  recess. 

"Pass  your  hand,"  I  said,  "over  the  wall;  you  cannot  help 
feeling  the  nitre.  Indeed  it  is  very  damp.  Once  more  let  me 
implore  you  to  return.  No?  Then  I  must  positively  leave 
you.  But  I  must  first  render  you  all  the  little  attentions  in  my 
power." 

"The  Amontillado!"  ejaculated  my  friend,  not  yet  recovered 
from  his  astonishment. 

"True,"  I  replied;    "the  Amontillado." 

As  I  said  these  words  I  busied  myself  among  the  pile  of  bones 
of  which  I  have  before  spoken.  Throwing  them  aside,  I  soon  un- 
covered a  quantity  of  building-stone  and  mortar.  With  these 
materials  and  with  the  aid  of  my  trowel,  I  began  vigorously  to  wall 
up  the  entrance  of  the  niche. 

I  had  scarcely  laid  the  first  tier  of  the  masonry  when  I  discovered 
that  the  intoxication  of  Fortunato  had  in  a  great  measure  worn  off. 
The  earliest  indication  I  had  of  this  was  a  low  moaning  cry  from 
the  depth  of  the  recess.  It  was  not  the  cry  of  a  drunken  man. 


•506  ENGLISH   COMPOSITION 

There  was  then  a  long  and  obstinate  silence.  I  laid  the  second 
tier,  and  the  third,  and  the  fourth ;  and  then  I  heard  the  furious 
vibrations  of  the  chain.  The  noise  lasted  for  several  minutes, 
during  which,  that  I  might  hearken  to  it  with  the  more  satis- 
faction, I  ceased  my  labours  and  sat  down  upon  the  bones.  When 
at  last  the  clanking  subsided,  I  resumed  the  trowel,  and  finished 
without  interruption  the  fifth,  the  sixth,  and  the  seventh  tier.  The 
wall  was  now  nearly  upon  a  level  with  my  breast.  I  again  paused, 
and  holding  the  flambeaux  over  the  masonwork,  threw  a  few 
feeble  rays  upon  the  figure  within. 

A  succession  of  loud  and  shrill  screams,  bursting  suddenly  from 
the  throat  of  the  chained  form,  seemed  to  thrust  me  violently  back. 
For  a  brief  moment  I  hesitated  —  I  trembled.  Unsheathing  my 
rapier,  I  began  to  grope  with  it  about  the  recess ;  but  the  thought 
of  an  instant  reassured  me.  I  placed  my  hand  upon  the  solid 
fabric  of-  the  catacombs,  and  felt  satisfied.  I  reapproached  the 
wall.  I  replied  to  the  yells  of  him  who  clamoured.  I  reechoed  — 
I  aided  —  I  surpassed  them  in  volume  and  in  strength.  I  did 
this  and  the  clamourer  grew  still. 

It  was  now  midnight,  and  my  task  was  drawing  to  a  close.  I 
had  completed  the  eighth,  the  ninth,  and  the  tenth  tier.  I  had 
finished  a  portion  of  the  last  and  the  eleventh ;  there  remained  but 
a  single  stone  to  be  fitted  and  plastered  in.  I  struggled  with  its 
weight;  I  placed  it  partially  in  its  destined  position.  But  now 
there  came  from  out  the  niche  a  low  laugh  that  erected  the  hairs 
upon  my  head.  It  was  succeeded  by  a  sad  voice,  which  I  had 
difficulty  in  recognizing  as  that  of  the  noble  Fortunato.  The 
voice  said:  — 

"Ha !  ha !  ha !  —  he !  he !  he !  —  a  very  good  joke  indeed  —  an 
excellent  jest.  We  will  have  many  a  rich  laugh  about  it  at  the 
palazzo  —  he !  he !  he !  —  over  our  wine  —  he !  he !  he ! " 

"The  Amontillado!"  I  said. 

"He!  he!  he  !  —  he  !  he!  he!— yes,  the  Amontillado.  But 
is  it  not  getting  late  ?  Will  not  they  be  awaiting  us  at  the  palazzo 
—  the  Lady  Fortunato  and  the  rest?  Let  us  be  gone." 

"Yes,"  I  said,  "let  us  be  gone." 

"  For  the  love  of  God,  Montresor!" 

"Yes,"  I  said,  "for  the  love  of  God!" 


THE  STORY 


3°7 


But  to  these  words  I  hearkened  in  vain  for  a  reply.  I  grew 
impatient.  I  called  aloud :  — 

"Fortunate!" 

No  answer.     I  called  again:  — 

"  Fortunate ! " 

No  answer  still.  I  thrust  a  torch  through  the  remaining  aperture 
and  let  it  fall  within.  There  came  forth  in  return  only  a  jingling 
of  the  bells.  My  heart  grew  sick  —  on  account  of  the  dampness 
of  the  catacombs.  I  hastened  to  make  an  end  of  my  labour.  I 
forced  the  last  stone  into  its  position ;  I  plastered  it  up.  Against 
the  new  masonry  I  reerected  the  old  rampart  of  bones.  For  the 
half  of  a  century  no  mortal  has  disturbed  them.  In  pace  requiescat. 

COHERENCE   IN  NARRATIVE 

For  story-telling,  Coherence  is  as  vital  as  Unity;  indeed,  the 
necessity  for  a  clear  and  logical  development  is  more  obvious  in 
a  story  than  anywhere  else.  The  steps  to  this  coherency  are  not 
so  easy  as  they  appear.  In  simple  narrative  one  can  follow  a 
regular,  chronological  order,  and  be  sure  of  an  orderly  develop- 
ment. But  a  story  must  always  be  interesting,  and  hence  it  will 
sometimes  be  advisable  to  plunge  in  medias  res,  to  begin  with  the 
exciting  middle  in  order  that  we  shall  be  interested  in  the  less 
stirring  scenes  which  came  before.  A  story  is  made  up  of  causal 
relations,  and  these  relations  must  be  explained  without  interrupt- 
ing the  flow  of  the  tale.  A  story  deals  with  characters  whose  past 
history  must,  in  some  measure,  be  known;  with  incidents  whose 
origin  must,  in  some  degree,  be  accounted  for.  Clearly,  "begin  at 
the  beginning  and  tell  to  the  end"  is  not  a  sufficient  direction. 

The  problem  will  be  simpler  after  we  have  divided  a  typical 
story  into  its  constituent  parts.  In  such  a  tale,  there  must  be  (a) 
the  antecedent  action,  which  includes  whatever  information  the 
reader  may  need  in  order  to  understand  the  place  of  action,  the 
identity  of  the  characters,  and  the  circumstances  which  lead  to  the 
plot.  There  is  (b)  the  development  of  the  plot;  (c)  the  climax; 
(d)  the  conclusion. 

Now  to  begin  one's  stories  in  medias  res,  as  Tennyson  begins 
each  one  of  his  Idylls  of  the  King,  requires  no  special  art.  It  is 


308  EX  GUSH   COMPOSITION 

only  necessary  to  make  sure  that  the  reader  grasps  the  chrono- 
logical relations  of  each  episode.  This  requires  some  skill,  and 
until  that  skill  is  acquired  stories  should  not  be  told  in  such  a 
fashion. 

Again,  it  is  not  difficult,  theoretically,  to  explain  the  causal 
relation  between  episode  and  episode  without  interrupting  the  flow 
of  the  narrative.  Here,  also,  skill  is  required,  but  the  question 
is  merely  one  of  interesting  and  effective  transitions  between  event 
and  event.  The  various  episodes  in  a  story  are  like  the  bases  in 
a  ball  game.  You  must  get  from  one  to  another  as  expeditiously 
as  possible. 

But  the  most  troublesome  problem  in  narrative  coherence  arises 
when  one  begins  to  consider  the  antecedent  action.  If  all  the 
explanatory  circumstances  are  not  given  at  the  beginning,  they 
must  be  brought  in  later  where  they  will  clog  the  story.  Steven- 
son, in  A  Gossip  on  Romance,  quotes  a  passage  from  .Scott  which 
illustrates  this  point  in  small  compass :  "  '  I  remember  the  tune  well, 
though  I  cannot  guess  what  should  at  present  so  strongly  recall 
it  to  my  memory.'  He  took  his  flageolet  from  his  pocket  and 
played  a  simple  melody.  Apparently  the  tune  awoke  the  corre- 
sponding associations  of  a  damsel,  who,  dose  behind  a  fine  spring 
about  halfway  down  the  descent,  and  which  had  once  supplied  the 
castle  with  water,  was  engaged  in  bleaching  linen.  She  immediately 
took  up  the  song  — 

'Are  these  the  links  of  Forth,'  she  said; 

'  Or  are  they  the  crooks  of  Dee, 
Or  the  bonny  woods  of  Warroch  Head 

That  I  so  fain  would  see?' 

"'By  Heaven!'  said  Bertram,  'it  is  the  very  ballad.'" 
The  maiden  should  have  been  accounted  for  earlier  so  that  the 
romantic  narrative  of  the  incident  might  have  run  free.  The 
marring  clauses  which  I  have  italicized  should  not  have  been  re- 
quired. The  remedy  here,  and  in  the  larger  field  of  the  story,  is 
to  get  all  the  explanation  out  of  the  way;  to  let  the  antecedent 
action  be  really  antecedent  to  the  narrative. 

There  is  just  one  way  to  learn  how  to  handle  this  portion  of 
the  story,  observation  combined  with  experiment.  Run  through 


THE  STORY 


3°9 


the  beginnings  of  a  dozen  good  stories  and  observe  the  method  in 
each.  You  will  see  that,  in  each  instance,  the  author  has  tucked 
away  his  explanations  in  the  first  lines,  first  paragraphs,  or  first 
pages.  You  will  also  discover  that  every  story  has  its  own  way  of 
disposing  of  this  explanation,  but  that  all  methods  are  alike  in  one 
respect :  they  endeavor  to  make  the  necessary  explanation  natural 
and  interesting.  One  author  will  resort  to  an  interesting  piece  of 
description  in  which  the  required  facts,  incidentally,  are  included. 
Another  will  begin  his  tale  with  a  preliminary  narrative,  a  "curtain 
raiser"  as  it  were;  still  another  will  so  contrive  his  story  proper  that 
a  few  lines  are  sufficient  to  tell  the  reader  all  he  needs  to  know  of  the 
characters  and  antecedent  events.  It  is  clear  that  although  you 
must  supply  the  necessary  explanations,  you  need  not  make  your 
first  course  so  tasteless  as  to  take  away  the  appetite.  No  one 
doubts  that  all  the  necessary  antecedent  action  is  included  in  the 
first  chapter  of  Guy  Mannering,  but  few  enjoy  wading  through  it. 
Skill  and  ingenuity  must  be  exercised  upon  this  problem  of  how 
to  open  a  story,  and  only  a  careful  consideration  of  the  plot  to  be 
developed  will  determine  just  what  facts  must  be  tucked  into  this 
prefatory  portion.  But  one  final  suggestion  may  be  of  value, 
because  it  deals  with  material  not  so  obvious  as  the  place,  time, 
actors,  and  circumstances  which  will  naturally  have,  to  be  ex- 
plained. In  life,  when  a  not  unexpected  event  happens,  we 
usually  say,  "I  told  you  so."  And  we  back  up  our  assertion  of 
foreknowledge  by  recalling  various  incidents  which  pointed  to- 
wards this  result.  These  incidents  belong  in  the  antecedent  action. 
The  start  at  the  sight  of  a  naked  sword  will  be  remembered  when 
the  villain  is  defeated  at  the  climax  because  he  is  a  coward.  The 
child  Modred  listening  at  the  keyhole  will  be  remembered  when  the 
man  is  traitor  to  his  king.  Such  "prophetic  incidents"  are  facts 
which  look  forwards  for  their  explanation,  and  so,  when  introduced 
at  the  beginning  with  the  other  facts  of  which  a  knowledge  will  be 
required  later,  they  are  bound  to  help  the  narrative  to  cohere. 

Every  good  story  is  a  good  example  of  antecedent  action  reason- 
ably well  handled,  for  it  could  not  be  very  good  otherwise.  But 
perhaps  the  best  illustration  is  to  be  found  in  a  tale  where  the  diffi- 
culty is  really  considerable.  A  notable  instance  is  Honore  de 
Balzac's  La  Grande  Brethhe.  Here  is  a  story  of  jealousy,  in  which 


3io 


ENGLISH   COMPOSITION 


the  lover  is  punished  in  the  sight  of  his  mistress.  The  narrative  of 
this  punishment  occupies  about  six  pages.  It  could  not,  however, 
have  been  left  in  this  simplicity  as  was  the  very  similar  episode 
in  The  Cask  oj  A  montillado,  for  we  are  sure  to  ask,  Who  was  the 
lover?  How  did  he  come  to  fall  in  love  with  Mme.  de  Merret? 
What  became  of  him  after  he  was  left  in  his  frightful  predicament  ? 
Balzac's  method  of  supplying  all  this  information  is  a  marvel  of 
technique.  First  come  three  pages  of  suggestive  description  by 
which  a  deserted  chateau  is  made  to  assume  an  air  of  mystery. 
Next,  an  inquisitive  lawyer  is  ushered  in  who  tells  the  story  of 
events  at  the  chateau  subsequent  to  the  tragedy,  a  story  which  is 
interesting  because  it  deepens  the  mystery  hanging  over  La  Grande 
Breteche.  Next  conies  the  hostess  of  the  inn.  It  is  she  who 
sheltered  the  lover,  and  her  account  supplies  the  love  story  which 
preceded  the  tragedy,  the  identity  of  the  lover,  the  situation  between 
husband  and  wife ;  in  a  word,  the  antecedent  action  which  we  re- 
quire. And  now  the  stage  is  clear  for  the  story  proper.  We  can 
follow  it  uninterruptedly  because  we  know  all  that  we  need  to  know 
of  the  circumstances.  We  may  stop  with  the  terrible  climax 
because  what  happened  afterwards  has  been  told.  The  propor- 
tions of  this  story  are  very  unusual.  Ordinarily  the  relation  of 
the  tale  proper  to  all  explanatory  matter  will  be  as  ten  is  to  one. 
But  La  Grande  Breteche  presented  especial  difficulties,  and  their 
working  out  illustrates,  all  the  more  clearly  because  of  the  exaggera- 
tion in  this  particular  instance,  the  method  to  be  followed  in  the 
pursuit  of  coherence  in  a  story. 

LA  GRANDE  BRETECHE1 

HONORE   DE   BALZAC 

About  one  hundred  yards  from  Venddme,  on  the  banks  of  the 
Loire,  there  stands  an  old  dark-coloured  house,  surmounted  by 
a  very  high  roof,  and  so  completely  isolated  that  there  is  not  in  the 
neighbourhood  a  single  evil-smelling  tannery  or  wretched  inn, 
such  as  we  see  in  the  outskirts  of  almost  every  small  town.  In 

1  From  the  version  by  G.  B.  Ives.  in  the  Balzac  volume  of  Little  French 
Masterpieces:  New  York  and  London,  G.  P.  Putnam's  Sons.  Used  by 
the  kind  permission  of  the  publishers. 


THE  STORY  311 

front  of  the  house  is  a  small  garden  bordering  the  river,  in  which 
the  boxwood  borders  of  the  paths,  once  neatly  trimmed,  now 
grow  at  their  pleasure.  A  few  willows,  born  in  the  Loire,  have 
grown  as  rapidly  as  the  hedge  which  encloses  the  garden,  and  half 
conceal  the  house.  The  plants  which  we  call  weeds  adorn  the 
slope  of  the  bank  with  their  luxuriant  vegetation.  The  fruit 
trees,  neglected  for  ten  years,  bear  no  fruit;  their  offshoots  form 
a  dense  undergrowth.  The  espaliers  resemble  hornbeam  hedges. 
The  paths,  formerly  gravelled,  are  overrun  with  purslane;  but, 
to  tell  the  truth,  there  are  no  well-marked  paths.  From  the  top 
of  the  mountain  upon  which  hang  the  ruins  of  the  old  chateau  of 
the  Dukes  of  Vendome,  the  only  spot  from  which  the  eye  can  look 
into  this  enclosure,  you  would  say  to  yourself  that,  at  a  period  which 
it  is  difficult  to  determine,  that  little  nook  was  the  delight  of  some 
gentleman  devoted  to  roses  and  tulips,  to  horticulture  in  short, 
but  especially  fond  of  fine  fruit.  You  espy  an  arbour,  or  rather 
the  ruins  of  an  arbour,  beneath  which  a  table  still  stands,  not  yet 
entirely  consumed  by  time.  At  sight  of  that  garden,  which  is  no 
longer  a  garden,  one  may  divine  the  negative  delights  of  the  peace- 
ful life  which  provincials  lead,  as  one  divines  the  existence  of  a 
worthy  tradesman  by  reading  the  epitaph  on  his  tombstone.  To 
round  out  the  melancholy  yet  soothing  thoughts  which  fill  the  mind, 
there  is  on  one  of  the  walls  a  sun-dial,  embellished  with  this  com- 
monplace Christian  inscription:  ULTIMAM  COGITA.  The  roof  of 
the  house  is  terribly  dilapidated,  the  blinds  are  always  drawn,  the- 
balconies  are  covered  with  swallows' '  nests,  the  doors  are  never 
opened.  Tall  weeds  mark  with  green  lines  the  cracks  in  the  steps ; 
the  ironwork  is  covered  with  rust.  Moon,  sun,  winter,  summer, 
snow,  have  rotted  the  wood,  warped  the  boards,  and  corroded  the 
paint. 

The  deathly  silence  which  reigns  there  is  disturbed  only  by  the 
birds,  the  cats,  the  martens,  the  rats  and  the  mice,  which  are  at 
liberty  to  run  about,  to  fight,  and  to  eat  one  another  at  their  will. 
An  invisible  hand  has  written  everywhere  the  word  MYSTERY.  If, 
impelled  by  curiosity,  you  should  go  to  inspect  the  house  on  the 
street  side,  you  would  see  a  high  gate,  arched  at  the  top,  in  which 
the  children  of  the  neighbourhood  have  made  numberless  holes. 
I  learned  later  that  that  gate  had  been  condemned  ten  years  before. 


3I2 


ENGLISH   COMPOSITION 


Through  these  irregular  breaches  you  would  be  able  to  observe 
the  perfect  harmony  between  the  garden  front  and  the  courtyard 
front.  The  same  disorder  reigns  supreme  in  both.  Tufts  of  weeds 
surround  the  pavements.  Enormous  cracks  furrow  the  walls, 
whose  blackened  tops  are  enlaced  by  the  countless  tendrils  of  climb- 
ing plants.  The  steps  are  wrenched  apart,  the  bell-rope  is  rotten, 
the  gutters  are  broken.  "  What  fire  from  heaven  has  passed  this 
way?  What  tribunal  has  ordered  salt  to  be  strewn  upon  this 
dwelling?  Has  God  been  insulted  here?  Has  France  been 
betrayed?"  'Such  are  the  questions  which  one  asks  one's  self. 
The  reptiles  crawl  hither  and  thither  without  answering.  That 
empty  and  deserted  house  is  an  immense  riddle,  the  solution  of 
which  is  known  to  no  one. 

It  was  formerly  a  small  feudal  estate  and  bore  the  name  of  La 
Grande  Breteche.  During  my  stay  at  Vendome,  where  Desplein 
had  left  me  to  attend  a  rich  patient,  the  aspect  of  that  strange 
building  became  one  of  my  keenest  pleasures.  Was  it  not  more 
than  a  mere  ruin?  Some  souvenirs  of  undeniable  authenticity 
are  always  connected  with  a  ruin;  but  that  abode,  still  standing, 
although  in  process  of  gradual  demolition  by  an  avenging  hand, 
concealed  a  secret,  an  unknown  thought;  at  the  very  least,  it 
betrayed  a  caprice.  More  than  once,  in  the  evening,  I  wandered 
in  the  direction  of  the  hedge,  now  wild  and  uncared  for,  which 
surrounded  that  enclosure.  I  defied  scratches,  and  made  my  way 
into  that  ownerless  garden,  that  estate  which  was  neither  public 
nor  private;  and  I  remained  whole  hours  there  contemplating  its 
disarray.  Not  even  to  learn  the  story  which  would  doubtless  ac- 
count for  that  extraordinary  spectacle,  would  I  have  asked  a  single 
question  of  any  Vendomese  gossip.  Straying  about  there,  I  com- 
posed delightful  romances,  I  abandoned  myself  to  little  orgies  of 
melancholy  which  enchanted  me. 

If  I  had  learned  the  cause  of  that  perhaps  most  commonplace 
neglect,  I  should  have  lost  the  unspoken  poesy  with  which  I  in- 
toxicated myself.  To  me  that  spot  represented  the  most  diverse 
images  of  human  life  darkened  by  its  misfortunes ;  now  it  was  the 
air  of  the  cloister,  minus  the  monks ;  again,  the  perfect  peace  of 
the  cemetery,  minus  the  dead  speaking  their  epitaphic  language; 
to-day,  the  house  of  the  leper;  to-morrow,  that  of  the  Fates;  but 


THE  STORY 


3*3 


it  was,  above  all,  the  image  of  the  province,  with  its  meditation, 
with  its  hour-glass  life.  I  have  often  wept  there,  but  never  laughed. 
More  than  once  I  have  felt  an  involuntary  terror,  as  I  heard  above 
my  head  the  low  rustling  made  by  the  wings  of  some  hurrying  dove. 
The  ground  is  damp;  you  must  beware  of  lizards,  snakes,  and 
toads,  which  wander  about  there  with  the  fearless  liberty  of  nature ; 
above  all,  you  must  not  fear  the  cold,  for,  after  a  few  seconds;  you 
feel  an  icy  cloak  resting  upon  your  shoulders,  like  the  hand  of  the 
Commendator  on  the  neck  of  Don  Juan.  One  evening  I  had 
shuddered  there ;  the  wind  had  twisted  an  old  rusty  weather-vane, 
whose  shrieks  resembled  a  groan  uttered  by  the  house  at  the  mo- 
ment that  I  was  finishing  a  rather  dismal  melodrama,  by  which 
I  sought  to  explain  to  myself  that  species  of  monumental  grief. 
I  returned  to  my  inn,  beset  by  sombre  'thoughts.  When  I  had 
supped,  my  hostess  entered  my  room  with  a  mysterious  air,  and 
said  to  me :  — 

"Here  is  Monsieur  Regnault,  monsieur." 

"  Who  is  Monsieur  Regnault  ?  " 

"What!  monsieur  doesn't  know  Monsieur  Regnault?  That's 
funny ! "  she  said,  as  she  left  the  room. 

Suddenly  I  saw  a  tall  slender  man,  dressed  in  black,  with  his 
hat  in  his  hand,  who  entered  the  room  like  a  ram  ready  to  rush 
at  his  rival,  disclosing  a  retreating  forehead,  a  small  pointed  head, 
and  a  pale  face,  not  unlike  a  glass  of  dirty  water.  You  would  have 
said  that  he  was  the  doorkeeper  of  some  iflinister.  He  wore  an 
old  coat,  threadbare  at  the  seams;  but  he  had  a  diamond  in  his 
shirt-frill  and  gold  rings  in  his  ears. 

"To  whom  have  I  the  honour  of  speaking,  monsieur?"  I  asked 
him. 

He  took  a  chair,  seated  himself  in  front  of  my  fire,  placed  his 
hat  on  my  table,  and  replied,  rubbing  his  hands:  — 

"  Ah  !  it's  very  cold !     I  am  Monsieur  Regnault,  monsieur." 

I  bowed,  saying  to  myself:  — 

"  II  Bondacani!    Look  for  him ! " 

"  I  am  the  notary  at  Vendome,"  he  continued. 

"I  am  delighted  to  hear  it,  monsieur,"  I  exclaimed,  "but  I  am 
not  ready  to  make  my  will,  for  reasons  best  known  to  myself." 

"Just  a  minute,"  he  rejoined,  raising  his  hand  as  if  to  impose 


314  ENGLISH   COMPOSITION 

silence  upon  me.  "  I  beg  pardon,  monsieur,  I  beg  pardon  !  I  have 
heard  that  you  go  to  walk  sometimes  in  the  garden  of  La  Grande 
Breteche." 

"Yes,  monsieur!" 

"Just  a  minute,"  he  said,  repeating  his  gesture;  "that  practice 
constitutes  a  downright  trespass.  I  have  come,  monsieur,  in  the 
name  and  as  executor  of  the  late  Madame  Countess  de  Merret,  to 
beg  you  to  discontinue  your  visits.  Just  a  minute !  I'm  not  a 
Turk,  and  I  don't  propose  to  charge  you  with  a  crime.  Besides, 
it  may  well  be  that  you  are  not  aware  of  the  circumstances  which 
compel  me  to  allow  the  finest  mansion  in  Vendome  to  fall  to  ruin. 
However,  monsieur,  you  seem  to  be  a  man  of  education,  and  you 
must  know  that  the  law  forbids  entrance  upon  an  enclosed  estate 
under  severe  penalties.  A  hedge  is  as  good  as  a  wall.  But  the 
present  condition  of  the  house  may  serve  as  an  excuse  for  your 
curiosity.  I  would  ask  nothing  better  than  to  allow  you  to  go 
and  come  as  you  please  in  that  house ;  but,  as  it  is  my  duty  to  carry 
out  the  \fill  of  the  testatrix,  I  have  the  honour,  monsieur,  to  request 
you  not  to  go  into  that  garden  again.  Even  I  myself,  monsieur, 
since  the  opening  of  the  will,  have  never  set  foot  inside  that  house, 
which,  as  I  have  had  the  honour  to  tell  you,  is  a  part  of  the  estate 
of  Madame  de  Merret.  We  simply  reported  the  number  of  doors 
and  windows,  in  order  to  fix  the  amount  of  the  impost  which  I  pay 
annually  from  the  fund  set  aside  for  that  purpose  by  the  late  countess. 
Ah!  her  will  made  a. great  deal  of  talk  in  Vendome,  monsieur." 

At  that,  he  stopped  to  blow  his  nose,  the  excellent  man.  I  re- 
spected his  loquacity,  understanding  perfectly  that  the  administra- 
tion of  Madame  de  Merret's  property  was  the  important  event  of 
his  life  —  his  reputation,  his  glory,  his  Restoration.  I  must  needs 
bid  adieu  to  my  pleasant  reveries,  to  my  romances ;  so  that  I  was 
not  inclined  to  scorn  the  pleasure  of  learning  the  truth  from  an 
official  source. 

"Would  it  be  indiscreet,  monsieur,"  I  asked  him,  "to  ask  you 
the  reason  of  this  extraordinary  state  of  affairs?" 

At  that  question  an  expression  which  betrayed  all  the  pleasure 
that  a  man  feels  who  is  accustomed  to  ride  a  hobby  passed  over  the 
notary's  face.  He  pulled  up  his  shirt  collar  with  a  self-satisfied 
air,  produced  his  snuff-box,  opened  it,  offered  it  to  me,  and  at  my 


THE  STORY 


3*5 


refusal,  took  a  famous  pinch  himself.  He  was  happy;  the  man 
who  has  no  hobby  has  no  idea  of  the  satisfaction  that  can  be  de- 
rived from  life.  A  hobby  is  the  precise  mean  between  passion  and 
monomania.  At  that  moment  I  understood  the  witty  expression 
of  Sterne  in  all  its  extent,  and  I  had  a  perfect  conception  of  the  joy 
with  which  Uncle  Toby,  with  Trim's  assistance,  bestrode  his 
battle- horse. 

"Monsieur,"  said  Monsieur  Regnault,  "I  was  chief  clerk  to 
Master  Roguin  of  Paris.  An  excellent  office,  of  which  you  may 
have  heard  ?  No  ?  Why,  it  was  made  famous  by  a  disastrous 
failure.  Not  having  sufficient  money  to  practise  in  Paris,  at  the 
price  to  which  offices  had  risen  in  1816,  I  came  here  and  bought 
the  office  of  my  predecessor.  I  had  relatives  in  Vendome,  among 
others  a  very  rich  aunt,  who  gave  me  her  daughter  in  marriage. 
Monsieur,"  he  continued  after  a  brief  pause,  "three  months  after 
being  licensed  by  the  Keeper  of  the  Seals  I  was  sent  for  one  even- 
ing, just  as  I  was  going  to  bed  (I  was  not  then  married),  by  Madame 
Countess  de  Merret,  to  come  to  her  Chateau  de  Merret.  Her 
maid,  an  excellent  girl  who  works  in  this  inn  to-day,  was  at  my 
door  with  madame  countess's  carriage.  But,  just  a  minute !  I 
must  tell  you,  monsieur,  that  Monsieur  Count  de  Merret  had  gone 
to  Paris  to  die,  two  months  before  I  came  here.  He  died  miserably 
there,  abandoning  himself  to  excesses  of  all  sorts.  You  under- 
stand ?  —  On  the  day  of  his  departure  madame  countess  had  left 
La  Grande  Breteche  and  had  dismantled  it.  Indeed,  some  people 
declare  that  she  burned  the  furniture  and  hangings,  and  all  chattels 
whatsoever  now  contained  in  the  estate  leased  by  the  said  —  What 
on  earth  am  I  saying  ?  I  beg  pardon,  I  thought  I  was  dictating  a 
lease  —  That  she  burned  them,"  he  continued,  "in  the  fields  at 
Merret.  Have  you  been  to  Merret,  monsieur?  No?"  he  said, 
answering  his  own  question.  "Ah!  that  is  a  lovely  spot!  For 
about  three  months,"  he  continued,  after  a  slight  shake  of  the  head, 
"monsieur  count  and  madame  countess  led  a  strange  life. 

"They  received  no  guests;  madame  lived  on  the  ground  floor, 
and  monsieur  on  the  first  floor.  When  madame  countess  was  left 
alone,  she  never  appeared  except  at  church.  Later,  in  her  own 
house,  at  her  chateau,  she  refused  to  see  the  friends  who  came  to  see 
her.  She  was  already  much  changed  when  she  left  La  Grande 


316  ENGLISH   COMPOSITION 

Breteche  to  go  to  Merret.  The  dear  woman  —  I  say  'dear,' 
because  this  diamond  came  from  her ;  but  I  actually  only  saw  her 
once,  —  the  excellent  lady,  then,  was  very  ill ;  she  had  doubtless 
despaired  of  her  health,  for  she  died  without  calling  a  doctor;  so 
that  many  of  our  ladies  thought  that  she  was  not  in  full  possession 
of  her  wits.  My  curiosity  was  therefore  strangely  aroused,  mon- 
sieur, when  I  learned  that  Madame  de  Merret  needed  my  services. 
I  was  not  the  only  one  who  took  an  interest  in  that  story.  That 
same  evening,  although  it  was  late,  the  whole  town  knew  that  I  had 
gone  to  Merret.  The  maid  answered  rather  vaguely  the  questions 
that  I  asked  her  on  the  road ;  she  told  me,  however,  that  her  mistress 
had  received  the  sacrament  from  the  cure  of  Merret  during  the 
day,  and  that  she  did  not  seem  likely  to  live  through  the  night. 

"I  reached  the  chateau  about  eleven  o'clock;  I  mounted  the 
main  staircase.  After  passing  through  divers  large  rooms,  high 
and  dark,  and  as  cold  and  damp  as  the  devil,  I  reached  the  state 
bedchamber  where  the  countess  was.  According  to  the  reports 
that  were  current  concerning  that  lady  —  I  should  never  end, 
monsieur,  if  I  should  repeat  all  the  stories  that  are  told  about  her  — 
I  had  thought  of  her  as  a  coquette.  But,  if  you  please,  I  had  much 
difficulty  in  finding  her  in  the  huge  bed  in  which  she  lay.  To  be 
sure,  to  light  that  enormous  wainscoted  chamber  of  the  old  regime, 
where  everything  was  so  covered  with  dust  that  it  made  one  sneeze 
simply  to  look  at  it,  she  had  only  one  of  those  old-fashioned  Argand 
lamps.  Ah  !  but  you  have  never  been  to  Merret.  Well,  monsieur, 
the  bed  is  one  of  those  beds  of  the  olden  time,  with  a  high  canopy 
of  flowered  material.  A  small  night-table  stood  beside  the  bed, 
and  I  saw  upon  it  a  copy  of  the  Imitation  of  Jesus  Christ,  which, 
by  the  by,  I  bought  for  my  wife,  as  well  as  the  lamp.  There  was 
also  a  large  couch  for  the  attendant,  and  two  chairs.  Not  a  spark 
of  fire.  That  was  all  the  furniture.  It  wouldn't  have  filled  ten 
lines  in  an  inventory. 

"Oh !  my  dear  monsieur,  if  you  had  seen,  as  I  then  saw  it,  that 
huge  room  hung  with  dark  tapestry,  you  would  have  imagined 
yourself  transported  into  a  genuine  scene  from  a  novel.  It  was 
icy  cold;  and,  more  than  that,  absolutely  funereal,"  he  added, 
raising  his  arm  with  a  theatrical  gesture  and  pausing  for  a  moment. 
"By  looking  hard  and  walking  close  to  the  bed,  I  succeeded  in 


THE  STORY 


317 


discovering  Madame  de  Merret,  thanks  to  the  lamp,  the  light  of 
which  shone  upon  the  pillow.  Her  face  was  as  yellow  as  wax,  and 
resembled  two  clasped  hands.  She  wore  a  lace  cap,  which  re- 
vealed her  lovely  hair,  as  white  as  snow.  She  was  sitting  up,  and 
seemed  to  retain  that  position  with  much  difficulty.  Her  great 
black  eyes,  dulled  by  fever  no  doubt,  and  already  almost  lifeless, 
hardly  moved  beneath  the  bones  which  the  eyebrows  cover  — 
these,"  he  said,  pointing  to  the  arch  over  his  eyes.  —  "Her  brow 
was  moist.  Her  fleshless  hands  resembled  bones  covered  with 
tightly-drawn  skin ;  her  veins  and  muscles  could  be  seen  perfectly. 
She  must  have  been  very  beautiful ;  but  at  that  moment  I  was  seized 
with  an  indefinable  feeling  at  her  aspect.  Never  before,  according 
to  those  who  laid  her  out,  had  a  living  creature  attained  such  thin- 
ness without  dying.  In  short,  she  was  horrible  to  look  at ;  disease 
had  so  wasted  that  woman  that  she  was  nothing  more  than  a 
phantom.  Her  pale  violet  lips  seemed  not  to  move  when  she  spoke 
to  me.  Although  my  profession  had  familiarised  me  with  such 
spectacles,  by  taking  me  sometimes  to  the  pillows  of  dying  persons 
to  take  down  their  last  wishes,  I  confess  that  the  families  in  tears  and 
despair  whom  I  had  seen  were  as  nothing  beside  that  solitary, 
silent  woman  in  that  enormous  chateau. 

"  I  did  not  hear  the  slightest  sound,  I  could  not  detect  the 
movement  which  the  breathing  of  the  sick  woman  should  have 
imparted  to  the  sheets  that  covered  her;  and  I  stood  quite  still, 
gazing  at  her  in  a  sort  of  stupor.  It  seems  to  me  that  I  am  there 
now.  At  last  her  great  eyes  moved,  she  tried  to  raise  her  right  hand, 
which  fell  back  upon  the  bed,  and  these  words  came  from  her  mouth 
like  a  breath,  for  her  voice  had  already  ceased  to  be  a  voice :  '  I  have 
been  awaiting  you  with  much  impatience.'  —  Her  cheeks  suddenly 
flushed.  It  was  a  great  effort  for  her  to  speak,  monsieur.  —  '  Ma- 
dame,' I  said.  She  motioned  to  me  to  be  silent.  At  that  moment 
the  old  nurse  rose  and  whispered  in  my  ear:  'Don't  speak;  ma- 
dame  countess  cannot  bear  to  hear  the  slightest  sound,  and  what 
you  said  might  excite  her.'  —  I  sat  down.  A  few  moments  later, 
Madame  de  Merret  collected  all  her  remaining  strength,  to  move 
her  right  arm  and  thrust  it,  not  without  infinite  difficulty,  beneath 
her  bolster;  she  paused  for  just  a  moment;  then  she  made  a  last 
effort  to  withdraw  her  hand,  and  when  she  finally  produced  a  scaled 


318  ENGLISH   COMPOSITION 

paper,  drops  of  sweat  fell  from  her  brow.  —  '  I  place  my  will  in 
your  hands,'  she  said.  'Oh,  man  Dieu!  oh!'  —  That  was  all. 
She  grasped  a  crucifix  that  lay  on  her  bed,  hastily  put  it  to  her  lips, 
and  died.  The  expression  of  her  staring  eyes  makes  me  shudder 
even  now,  when  I  think  of  it.  She  must  have  suffered  terribly! 
There  was  a  gleam  of  joy  in  her  last  glance,  a  sentiment  which 
remained  in  her  dead  eyes. 

"I  carried  the  will  away;  and  when  it  was  opened,  I  found 
that  Madame  de  Merret  had  appointed  me  her  executor.  She 
left  all  her  property  to  the  hospital  at  Vendome  with  her  exception 
of  a  few  individual  legacies.  But  these  were  her  provisions  with 
respect  to  La  Grande  Breteche :  She  directed  me  to  leave  her  house, 
for  fifty  years  from  the  day  of  her  death,  in  the  same  condition  as 
at  that  moment  that  she  died ;  forbidding  any  person  whatsoever 
to  enter  the  rooms,  forbidding  the  slightest  repairs  to  be  made, 
and  even  setting  aside  a  sum  in  order  to  hire  keepers,  if  it  should  be 
found  necessary,  to  assure  the  literal  execution  of  her  purpose.  At 
the  expiration  of  that  period,  if  the  desire  of  the  testatrix  has  been 
carried  out,  the  house  is  to  belong  to  my  heirs,  for  monsieur  knows 
that  notaries  cannot  accept  legacies.  If  not,  La  Grande  Breteche 
is  to  revert  to  whoever  is  entitled  to  it,  but  with  the  obligation  to 
comply  with  the  conditions  set  forth  in  a  codicil  attached  to  the  will, 
which  is  not  to  be  opened  until  the  expiration  of  the  said  fifty  years. 
The  will  was  not  attacked;  and  so : 

At  that,  without  finishing  his  sentence,  the  elongated  notary 
glanced  at  me  with  a  triumphant  air,  and  I  made  him  altogether 
happy  by  addressing  a  few  compliments  to  him. 

"Monsieur,"  I  said,  "you  have  made  a  profound  impression 
upon  me,  so  that  I  think  I  see  that  dying  woman,  paler  than  her 
sheets;  her  gleaming  eyes  terrify  me;  and  I  shall  dream  of  her 
tornight.  But  you  must  have  formed  some  conjecture  concerning 
the  provisions  of  that  extraordinary  will." 

"Monsieur,"  he  said  with  a  comical  reserve,  "I  never  allow 
myself  to  judge  the  conduct  of  those  persons  who  honour  me  by 
giving  me  a  diamond." 

I  soon  loosened  the  tongue  of  the  scrupulous  Vendomese  notary, 
who  communicated  to  me,  not  without  long  digressions,  observa- 
tions due  to  the  profound  politicians  of  both  sexes  whose  decrees 


THE  STORY 


319 


are  law  in  Vendome.  But  those  observations  were  so  contradictory 
and  so  diffuse  that  I  almost  fell  asleep,  despite  the  interest  I  took 
in  that  authentic  narrative.  The  dull  and  monotonous  tone  of 
the  notary,  who  was  accustomed,  no  doubt,  to  listen  to  himself, 
and  to  force  his  clients  and  his  fellow-citizens  to  listen  to  him, 
triumphed  over  my  curiosity. 

"Aha!  many  people,  monsieur,"  he  said  to  me  on  the  landing, 
"would  like  to  live  forty-five  years  more;  but  just  a  minute!" 
and  with  a  sly  expression,  he  placed  his  right  forefinger  on  his  nose, 
as  if  he  would  have  said,  "Just  mark  what  I  say."  —  "But  to  do 
that,  to  do  that,"  he  added,  "a  man  must  be  less  than  sixty." 

I  closed  my  door,  having  been,  roused  from  my  apathy  by  this 
last  shaft,  which  the  notary  considered  very  clever;  then  I  seated 
myself  in  my  easy-chair,  placing  my  feet  on  the  andirons.  I  was 
soon  absorbed  in  an  imaginary  romance  a  la  Radcliffe,  based  upon 
the  judicial  observations  of  Monsieur  Regnault,  when  my  door, 
under  the  skilful  manipulation  of  a  woman's  hand,  turned  upon  its 
hinges.  My  hostess  appeared,  a  stout  red-faced  woman,  of  ex- 
cellent disposition,  who  had  missed  her  vocation :  she  was  a  Flem- 
ing, who  should  have  been  born  in  a  picture  by  Teniers. 

"Well,  monsieur,"  she  said,  ;'no  doubt  Monsieur  Regnault 
has  given  you  his  story  of  La  Grande  Breteche?" 

"  Yes,  Mother  Lepas." 

"What  did  he  tell  you?" 

I  repeated  in  a  few  words  the  chilling  and  gloomy  story  of 
Madame  de  Merret.  At  each  sentence  my  hostess  thrust  out  her 
neck,  gazing  at  me  with  the  true  innkeeper's  perspicacity  —  a  sort 
of  happy  medium  between  the  instinct  of  the  detective,  the  cunning 
of  the  spy,  and  the  craft  of  the  trader. 

"My  dear  Madame  Lepas,"  I  added,  as  I  concluded,  "you 
evidently  know  more,  eh  ?  If  not,  why  should  you  have  come  up 
here?" 

"  Oh !  on  an  honest  woman's  word,  as  true  as  my  name's 
Lepas 

"Don't  swear;  your  eyes  are  big  with  a  secret.  You  knew 
Monsieur  de  Merret.  What  sort  of  a  man  was  he?" 

"  Bless  my  soul !  Monsieur  de  Merret  was  a  fine  man,  whom 
you  never  could  see  the  whole  of,  he  was  so  long;  an  excellent 


320 


ENGLISH   COMPOSITION 


gentleman,  who  came  here  from  Picardy,  and  who  had  his  brains 
very  near  his  cap,  as  we  say  here.  He  paid  cash  for  everything, 
in  order  not  to  have  trouble  with  anybody.  You  see,  he  was  lively. 
We  women  all  found  him  very  agreeable." 

"Because  he  was  lively?"  I  asked. 

"  That  may  be,"  she  said.  "  You  know,  monsieur,  that  a  man 
must  have  had  something  in  front  of  him,  as  they  say,  to  marry 
Madame  de  Merret,  who,  without  saying  anything  against  the  others, 
was  the  loveliest  and  richest  woman  in  the  whole  province.  She 
had  about  twenty  thousand  francs  a  year.  The  whole  town  went 
to  her  wedding.  The  bride  was  dainty  and  attractive,  a  real 
jewel  of  a  woman.  Ah !  they  made  a  handsome  couple  at  that 
time ! " 

"Did  they  live  happily  together?" 

"  Oh,  dear !  oh,  dear !  yes  and  no,  so  far  as  any  one  could  tell ; 
for,  as  you  can  imagine,  we  folks  didn't  live  on  intimate  terms  with 
them.  Madame  de  Merret  was  a  kind-hearted  woman,  very 
pleasant,  who  had  to  suffer  sometimes  perhaps  from  her  husband's 
quick  temper;  but  although  he  was  a  bit  proud,  we  liked  him. 
You  see,  it  was  his  business  to  be  like  that ;  when  a  man  is  noble, 
you  know " 

"However,  some  catastrophe  must  have  happened,  to  make 
Monsieur  and  Madame  de  Merret  separate  so  violently?" 

"I  didn't  say  there  was  any  catastrophe,  monsieur.  I  don't 
know  anything  about  it." 

"  Good !     I  am  sure  now  that  you  know  all  about  it." 

"  Well,  monsieur,  I'll  tell  you  all  I  know.  When  I  saw  Monsieur 
Regnault  come  up  to  your  room,  I  had  an  idea  that  he  would  talk 
to  you  about  Madame  de  Merret  in  connection  with  La  Grande 
Breteche.  That  gave  me  the  idea  of  consulting  with  monsieur, 
who  seems  to  me  a  man  of  good  judgment  and  incapable  of 
playing  false  with  a  poor  woman  like  me,  who  never  did  any- 
body any  harm,  and  yet  who's  troubled  by  her  conscience. 
Up  to  this  time  I've  never  dared  to  speak  out  to  the  people 
of  this  neighbourhood,  for  they're  all  sharp-tongued  gossips. 
And  then,  monsieur,  I've  never  had  a  guest  stay  in  my  inn 
so  long  as  you  have,  and  to  whom  I  could  tell  the  story  of  the 
fifteen  thousand  francs." 


THE  STORY 


32I 


"My  dear  Madame  Lepas,"  I  said,  arresting  the  flood  of  her 
words,  "  if  your  confidence  is  likely  to  compromise  me,  I  wouldn't 
be  burdened  with  it  for  a  moment,  for  anything  in  the  world." 

"Don't  be  afraid,"  she  said,  interrupting  me;   "you  shall  see." 

This  eagerness  on  her  part  made  me  think  that  I  was  not  the 
only  one  to  whom  my  worthy  hostess  had  communicated  the  secret 
of  which  I  dreaded  to  be  the  only  confidant,  and  I  listened. 

"Monsieur,"  she  began,  "when  the  Emperor  sent  Spanish  or 
other  prisoners  of  war  here,  I  had  to  board,  at  the  expense  of 
the  government,  a  young  Spaniard  who  was  sent  to  Vendome  on 
parole.  In  spite  of  the  parole,  he  went  every  day  to  show  himself 
to  the  subprefect.  He  was  a  Spanish  grandee !  Nothing  less ! 
He  had  a  name  in  os  and  dia,  something  like  Bagos  de  Feredia. 
I  have  his  name  written  on  my  register;  you  can  read  it  if  you  wish. 
He  was  a  fine  young  man  for  a  Spaniard,  who  they  say  are  all  ugly. 
He  was  only  five  feet  two  or  three  inches  tall,  but  he  was  well-built ; 
he  had  little  hands,  which  he  took  care  of  —  oh !  you  should  have 
seen;  he  had  as  many  brushes  for  his  hands  as  a  woman  has  for 
all  purposes !  He  had  long  black  hair,  a  flashing  eye,  and  rather 
a  copper-coloured  skin,  which  I  liked  all  the  same.  He  wore  such 
fine  linen  as  I  never  saw  before  on  any  one,  although  I  have  enter- 
tained princesses,  and  among  others  General  Bertrand,  the  Duke 
and  Duchess  d'Abrantes,  Monsieur  Decazes,  and  the  King  of 
Spain.  He  didn't  eat  much ;  but  he  had  polite  and  pleasant  man- 
ners, so  that  I  couldn't  be  angry  with  him  for  it.  Oh  !  I  was  very 
fond  of  him,  although  he  didn't  say  four  words  a  day,  and  it  was 
impossible  to  have  the  slightest  conversation  with  him ;  if  any  one 
spoke  to  him,  he  wouldn't  answer;  it  was  a  fad,  a  mania  that  they 
all  have,  so  they  tell  me.  He  read  his  breviary  like  a  priest,  he 
went  to  mass  and  to  all  the  services  regularly.  Where  did  he  sit  ? 
We  noticed  that  later :  about  two  steps  from  Madame  de  Merret's 
private  chapel.  As  he  took  his  seat  there  the  first  time  that  he 
came  to  the  church,  nobody  imagined  that  there  was  any  design 
in  it.  Besides,  he  never  took  his  face  off  his  prayer-book,  the  poor 
young  man!  In  the  evening,  monsieur,  he  used  to  walk  on  the 
mountain,  among  the  ruins  of  the  chateau.  That  was  the  poor 
man's  only  amusement ;  he  was  reminded  of  his  own  country  there. 
They  say  that  there's  nothing  but  mountains  in  Spain. 


322  ENGLISH  COMPOSITION 

"  Very  soon  after  he  came  here  he  began  to  stay  out  late.  I  was 
anxious  when  he  didn't  come  home  till  midnight;  but  we  all  got 
used  to  his  whim;  he  would  take  the  key  of  the  door,  and  we 
wouldn't  wait  for  him.  He  lived  in  a  house  that  we  have  on  Rue 
de  Casernes.  Then  one  of  our  stablemen  told  us  that  one  night, 
when  he  took  the  horses  to  drink,  he  thought  he  saw  the  Spanish 
grandee  swimming  far  out  in  the  river,  like  a  real  fish.  When  he 
came  back,  I  told  him  to  be  careful  of  the  eel-grass;  he  seemed 
vexed  that  he  had  been  seen  in  the  water.  At  last,  monsieur,  one 
day,  or  rather  one  morning,  we  didn't  find  him  in  his  room;  he 
hadn't  come  home.  By  hunting  carefully  everywhere,  I  found 
a  writing  in  his  table  drawer,,  where  there  were  fifty  of  the  Spanish 
gold-pieces  which  they  call  portugaises,  and  which  were  worth 
about  five  thousand  francs;  and  then  there  were  ten  thousand 
francs'  worth  of  diamonds  in  a  little  sealed  box.  His  writing  said 
that  in  case  he  didn't  return,  he  left  us  this  money  and  his  diamonds, 
on  condition  that  we  would  found  masses  to  thank  God  for  his 
escape  and  his  salvation.  In  those  days  I  still  had  my  man,  who 
went  out  to  look  for  him.  And  here's  the  funny  part  of  the  story: 
he  brought  back  the  Spaniard's  clothes,  which  he  found  under 
a  big  stone  in  a  sort  of  shed  by  the  river,  on  the  chateau  side,  almost 
opposite  La  Grande  Breteche. 

"My  husband  went  there  so  early  that  no  one  saw  him;  he 
burned  the  clothes  after  reading  the  letter,  and  we  declared,  ac- 
cording to  Count  Feredia's  wish,  that  he  had  escaped.  The  sub- 
prefect  set  all  the  gendarmerie  on  his  track,  but,  bless  my  soul! 
they  never  caught  him.  Lepas  believed  that  the  Spaniard  had 
drowned  himself.  For  my  part,  monsieur,  I  don't  think  it;  I 
think  rather  that  he  was  mixed  up  in  Madame  de  Merret's  business, 
seeing  that  Rosalie  told  me  that  the  crucifix  that  her  mistress 
thought  so  much  of  that  she  had  it  buried  with  her,  was  made  of 
ebony  and  silver ;  now,  in  the  early  part  of  his  stay  here,  Monsieur 
Feredia  had  one  of  silver  and  ebony,  which  I  didn't  see  afterwards. 
Tell  me  now,  monsieur,  isn't  it  true  that  I  needn't  have  any  re- 
morse about  the  Spaniard's  fifteen  thousand  francs,  and  that  they 
are  fairly  mine?" 

"Certainly.  But  did  you  never  try  to  question  Rosalie?" 
I  asked  her. 


THE  STORY 


323 


" Oh !  yes,  indeed,  monsieur.  But  would  you  believe  it?  That 
girl  is  like  a  wall.  She  knows  something,  but  it's  impossible  to 
make  her  talk." 

After  conversing  a  moment  more  with  me,  my  hostess  left  me 
beset  by  undefined  and  dismal  thoughts,  by  a  romantic  sort  of 
curiosity,  a  religious  terror  not  unlike  the  intense  emotion  that 
seizes  us  when  we  enter  a  dark  church  at  night  and  see  a  dim  light 
in  the  distance  under  the  lofty  arches ;  a  vague  figure  gliding  along, 
or  the  rustling  of  a  dress  or  a  surplice;  it  makes  us  shudder.  La 
Grand  Breteche  and  its  tall  weeds,  its  condemned  windows,  its 
rusty  ironwork,  its  closed  doors,  its  deserted  rooms,  suddenly 
appeared  before  me  in  fantastic  guise.  I  tried  to  penetrate  that 
mysterious  abode,  seeking  there  the  kernel  of  that  sombre  story, 
of  that  drama  which  had  caused  the  death  of  three  persons.  In 
my  eyes  Rosalie  was  the  most  interesting  person  in  Vend6me. 
As  I  scrutinised  her,  I  detected  traces  of  some  inmost  thought, 
despite  the  robust  health  that  shone  upon  her  plump  cheeks. 
There  was  in  her  some  seed  of  remorse  or  of  hope;  her  manner 
announced  a  secret,  as  does  that  of  the  devotee  who  prays  with 
excessive  fervour,  or  that  of  the  infanticide,  who  constantly  hears 
her  child's  last  cry.  However,  her  attitude  was  artless  and  natural, 
her  stupid  smile  had  no  trace  of  criminality,  and  you  would  have 
voted  her  innocent  simply  by  glancing  at  the  large  handkerchief 
with  red  and  blue  squares  which  covered  her  vigorous  bust,  con- 
fined by  a  gown  with  white  and  violet  stripes. 

"No,"  I  thought,  "I  won't  leave  Vendome  without  learning 
the  whole  story  of  La  Grande  Breteche.  To  obtain  my  end,  I 
will  become  Rosalie's  friend,  if  it  is  absolutely  necessary." 

"Rosalie?"  I  said  one  evening. 

"What  is  it,  monsieur?" 

"You  are  not  married?" 

She  started  slightly. 

"  Oh  !  I  sha'n't  lack  men  when  I  take  a  fancy  to  be  unhappy !" 
she  said  with  a  laugh. 

She  speedily  overcame  her  inward  emotion;  for  all  women, 
from  the  great  lady  down  to  the  servant  at  an  inn,  have  a  self- 
possession  which  is  peculiar  to  them. 

"  You  are  fresh  and  appetising  enough  not  to  lack  suitors.     But 


324 


ENGLISH   COMPOSITION 


tell  me,  Rosalie,  why  did  you  go  to  work  in  an  inn  when  you  left 
Madame  de  Merret's?  Didn't  she  leave  you  some  money?" 

"Oh,  yes!  but  my  place  is  the  best  in  Vendome,  monsieur." 

This  reply  was  one  of  those  which  judges  and  lawyers  call 
dilatory.  Rosalie  seemed  to  me  to  occupy  in  that  romantic  story 
the  position  of  the  square  in  the  middle  of  the  chessboard ;  she  was 
at  the  very  centre  of  interest  and  of  truth ;  she  seemed  to  me  to  be 
tied  up  in  the  clew ;  it  was  no  longer  an  ordinary  case  of  attempting 
seduction ;  there  was  in  that  girl  the  last  chapter  of  a  romance ;  and 
so,  from  that  moment,  Rosalie  became  the  object  of  my  attentions. 
By  dint  of  studying  the  girl,  I  observed  in  her,  as  in  all  women  to 
whom  we  devote  all  our  thoughts,  a  multitude  of  good  qualities: 
she  was  neat  and  clean,  and  she  was  fine-looking  —  that  goes 
without  saying;  she  had  also  the  attractions  which  our  desire  im- 
parts to  women,  in  whatever  station  of  life  they  may  be.  A  fort- 
night after  the  notary's  visit,  I  said  to  Rosalie  one  evening,  or  rather 
one  morning,  for -it  was  very  early:  — 

"Tell  me  all  that  you  know  about  Madame  de  Merret." 

"  Oh,  don't  ask  me  that,  Monsieur  Horace ! "  she  replied  in 
alarm. 

Her  pretty  face  darkened,  her  bright  colour  vanished,  and  her 
eyes  lost  their  humid,  innocent  light.  But  I  insisted. 

"Well,"  she  rejoined,  "as  you  insist  upon  it,  I  will  tell  you;  but 
keep  my  secret ! " 

"  Of  course,  of  course,  my  dear  girl ;  I  will  keep  all  your  secrets 
with  the  probity  of  a  thief,  and  that  is  the  most  loyal  probity  that 
exists." 

"  If  it's  all  the  same  to  you,"  she  said,  "  I  prefer  that  it  should 
be  with  your  own." 

Thereupon  she  arranged  her  neckerchief,  and  assumed  the 
attitude  of  a  story-teller ;  for  there  certainly  is  an  attitude  of  trust 
and  security  essential  to  the  telling  of  a  story.  The  best  stories 
are  told  at  a  certain  hour,  and  at  the  table,  as  we  all  are  now.  No 
one  ever  told  a  story  well  while  standing,  or  fasting.  But  if  it 
were  necessary  to  reproduce  faithfully  Rosalie's  diffuse  eloquence, 
a  whole  volume  would  hardly  suffice.  Now,  as  the  event  of  which 
she  gave  me  a  confused  account,  occupied,  between  the  loquacity 
of  the  notary  and  that  of  Madame  Lepas,  the  exact  position  of  the 


THE  STORY 


325 


mean  terms  of  an  arithmetical  proportion  between  the  two  extremes, 
it  is  only  necessary  for  me  to  repeat  it  to  you  in  a  few  words. 
Therefore  I  abridge. 

The  room  which  Madame  de  Merret  occupied  at  La  Grande 
Breteche  was  on  the  ground  floor.  A  small  closet,  about  four  feet 
deep,  in  the  wall,  served  as  her  wardrobe.  Three  months  before 
the  evening,  the  incidents  of  which  I  am  about  to  narrate,  Madame 
de  Merret  had  been  so  seriously  indisposed  that  her  husband  left 
her  alone  in  her  room  and  slept  in  a  room  on  the  first  floor.  By 
one  of  those  chances  which  it  is  impossible  to  foresee,  he  returned 
home,  on  the  evening  in  question,  two  hours  later  than  usual,  from 
the  club  to  which  he  was  accustomed  to  go  to  read  the  newspapers 
and  to  talk  politics  with  the  people  of  the  neighbourhood.  His 
wife  supposed  that  he  had  come  home,  and  had  gone  to  bed  and 
to  sleep.  But  the  invasion  of  France  had  given  rise  to  a  lively 
discussion ;  the  game  of  billiards  had  been  very  close,  and  he  had 
lost  forty  francs,  an  enormous  sum  at  Vendome,  where  everybody 
hoards  money,  and  where  manners  are  confined  within  the  limits 
of  a  modesty  worthy  of  all  praise,  which  perhaps  is  the  source  of 
a  true  happiness  of  which  no  Parisian  has  a  suspicion. 

For  some  time  past  Monsieur  de  Merret  had  contented  him- 
self with  asking  Rosalie  if  his  wife  were  in  bed ;  at  the  girl's  reply, 
always  in  the  affirmative,  he  went  immediately  to  his  own  room 
with  the  readiness  born  of  habit  and  confidence.  But  on  return- 
ing home  that  evening,  he  took  it  into  his  head  to  go  to  Madame 
de  Merret's  room,  to  tell  of  his  misadventure  and  perhaps  also  to 
console  himself  for  it.  During  dinner  he  had  remarked  that  Ma- 
dame de  Merret  was  very  coquettishly  dressed ;  he  said  to  himself 
as  he  walked  home  from  the  club,  that  his  wife  was  no  longer  ill, 
that  her  convalescence  had  improved  her;  but  he  perceived  it,  as 
husbands  notice  everything,  a  little  late.  Instead  of  calling  Rosalie, 
who  at  that  moment  was  busy  in  the  kitchen,  watching  the  cook 
and  the  coachman  play  a  difficult  hand  of  brisque,  Monsieur  de 
Merret  went  to  his  wife's  room,  lighted  by  his  lantern,  which  he 
had  placed  on  the  top  step  of  the  stairs.  His  footstep,  easily  rec- 
ognised, resounded  under  the  arches  of  the  corridor.  At  the 
instant  that  he  turned  the  knob  of  his  wife's  door,  he  fancied  that 
he  heard  the  door  of  the  closet  that  I  have  mentioned  close;  but 


326  ENGLISH   COMPOSITION 

when  he  entered,  Madame  de  Merret  was  alone,  standing  in  front 
of  the  hearth.  The  husband  naively  concluded  that  Rosalie  was 
in  the  closet;  however,  a  suspicion,  that  rang  in  his  ears  like  the 
striking  of  a. clock,  made  him  distrustful;  he  looked  at  his  wife 
and  detected  in  her  eyes  something  indefinable  of  confusion  and 
dismay. 

"  You  come  home  very  late,"  she  said. 

That  voice,  usually  so  pure  and  so  gracious,  seemed  to  him 
slightly  changed.  He  made  no  reply,  but  at  that  moment  Rosalie 
entered  the  room.  That  was  a  thunderclap  to  him.  He  walked 
about  the  room,  from  one  window  to  another,  with  a  uniform  step 
and  with  folded  arms. 

"Have  you  learned  anything  distressing,  or  are  you  ill?"  his 
wife  timidly  asked  him,  while  Rosalie  undressed  her. 

He  made  no  reply. 

"You  may  go,"  said  Madame  de  Merret  to  her  maid;  "I  will 
put  on  my  curl-papers  myself." 

She  divined  some  catastrophe  simply  from  the  expression  of 
her  husband's  face,  and  she  preferred  to  be  alone  with  him.  When 
Rosalie  was  gone,  or  was  supposed  to  be  gone,  for  she  stayed  for 
some  moments  in  the  corridor,  Monsieur  de  Merret  took  his  stand 
in  front  of  his  wife,  and  said  to  her  coldly:  — 

"Madame,  there  is  some  one  in  your  closet?" 

She  looked  at  her  husband  calmly,  and  replied  simply:  — 

"No,  monsieur." 

That  "no"  tore  Monsieur  de  Merret's  heart,  for  he  did  not  be- 
lieve it ;  and  yet  his  wife  had  never  seemed  to  him  purer  and  more 
holy  than  she  seemed  at  that  moment. '  He  rose  to  open  the  closet 
door;  Madame  de  Merret  took  his  hand,  stopped  him,  looked  at 
him  with  a  melancholy  expression,  and  said  in  a  voice  strangely 
moved :  — 

"If  you  find  no  one,  reflect  that  all  is  at  an  end  between  us!" 

The  indescribable  dignity  of  his  wife's  attitude  reawoke  the 
gentleman's  profound  esteem  for  her,  and  inspired  in  him  one  of 
those  resolutions  which  require  only  a  vaster  theatre  in  order  to 
become  immortal. 

"  No,"  he  said,  "  I  will  not  do  it,  Josephine.  In  either  case,  we 
should  be  separated  forever.  Listen;  I  know  all  the  purity  of 


THE  STORY 


327 


your  soul,  and  I  know  that  you  lead  the  life  of  a  saint,  and  that 
you  would  not  commit  a  mortal  sin  to  save  your  life." 

At  these  words,  Madame  de  Merret  looked  at  her  husband  with 
a  haggard  eye. 

"  See,  here  is  your  crucifix ;  swear  to  me  before  God  that  there 
is  no  one  there,  and  I  will  believe  you,  I  will  never  open  that 
door." 

Madame  de  Merret  took  the  crucifix  and  said:  — 

"  I  swear  it." 

"Louder,"  said  the  husband,  "and  repeat  after  me:  'I  swear 
before  God  that  there  is  no  one  in  that  closet.'" 

She  repeated  the  words  without  confusion. 

"  It  is  well,"  said  Monsieur  de  Merret  coldly.  After  a  moment's 
silence,  "  This  is  a  very  beautiful  thing  that  I  did  not  know  you 
possessed,"  he  said,  as  he  examined  the  crucifix  of  ebony  encrusted 
with  silver  and  beautifully  carved. 

"I  found  it  at  Duvivier's;  when  that  party  of  prisoners  passed 
through  Vendome  last  year,  he  bought  it  of  a  Spanish  monk." 

"  Ah ! "  said  Monsieur  de  Merret,  replacing  the  crucifix  on  the 
nail.  And  he  rang.  Rosalie  did  not  keep  him  waiting.  Mon- 
sieur de  Merret  walked  hastily  to  meet  her,  led  her  into  the  em- 
brasure of  the  window  looking  over  the  garden,  and  said  to  her 
in  a  low  voice:  — 

"  I  know  that  Gorenflot  wants  to  marry  you,  that  poverty  alone 
prevents  you  from  coming  together,  and  that  you  have  told  him  that 
you  would  not  be  his  wife  until  he  found  some  way  to  become  a 
master  mason.  Well,  go  to  him,  and  tell  him  to  come  here  with  his 
trowel  and  his  tools.  Manage  so  as  not  to  wake  anybody  in  his 
house  but  him ;  his  fortune  will  exceed  your  desires.  Above  all,  go 
out  of  this  house  without  chattering,  or  — 

He  frowned.     Rosalie  started,  and  he  called  her  back. 

"Here,  take  my  pass-key,"  he  said. 

"  Jean !"  shouted  Monsieur  de  Merret  in  the  corridor,  in  a  voice 
of  thunder. 

Jean,  who  was  both  his  coachman  and  his  confidential  man, 
left  his  game  of  brisque  and  answered  the  summons. 

"  Go  to  bed,  all  of  you,"  said  his  master,  motioning  to  him  to 
come  near.  And  he  added,  but  in  an  undertone:  "When  they 


328  ENGLISH   COMPOSITION 

are  all  asleep,  asleep,  do  you  understand,  you  will  come  down  and 
let  me  know." 

Monsieur  de  Merret,  who  had  not  lost  sight  of  his  wife  while 
giving  his  orders,  calmly  returned  to  her  side  in  front  of  the  fire, 
and  began  to  tell  her  about  the  game  of  billiards  and  the  discussion 
at  the  club.  When  Rosalie  returned  she  found  monsieur  and 
madame  talking  most  amicably.  The  gentleman  had  recently 
had  plastered  all  the  rooms  which  composed  his  reception  apart- 
ment on  the  ground  floor.  Plaster  is  very  scarce  in  Vendome,  and 
the  cost  of  transportation  increases  the  price  materially;  so  he 
had  purchased  quite  a  large  quantity,  knowing  that  he  would  readily 
find  customers  for  any  that  he  might  have  left.  That  circum- 
stance suggested  the  design  which  he  proceeded  to  carry  out. 

"  Gorenflot  is  here,  monsieur,"  said  Rosalie  in  an  undertone. 

"Let  him  come  in,"  replied  the  Picard  gentleman  aloud. 

Madame  de  Merret  turned  pale  when  she  saw  the  mason. 

"Gorenflot,"  said  her  husband,  "go  out  to  the  carriage-house 
and  get  some  bricks,  and  bring  in  enough  to  wall  up  the  door  of 
this  closet ;  you  can  use  the  plaster  that  I  had  left  over,  to  plaster 
the  wall."  Then,  beckoning  Rosalie  and  the  workman  to  him, 
he  said  in  a  low  tone :  "  Look  you,  Gorenflot,  you  will  sleep  here 
to-night.  But  to-morrow  morning  you  shall  have  a  passport  to  go 
abroad,  to  a  city  which  I  will  name  to  you.  I  will  give  you  six 
thousand  francs  for  your  journey.  You  will  remain  ten  years  in 
that  city ;  if  you  are  not  satisfied  there,  you  can  settle  in  another 
city,  provided  that  it  is  in  the  same  country.  You  will  go  by  way 
of  Paris,  where  you  will  wait  for  me.  There  I  will  give  you  a 
guarantee  to  pay  you  six  thousand  francs  more  on  your  return,  in 
case  you  have  abided  by  the  conditions  of  our  bargain.  At  that  price 
you  should  be  willing  to  keep  silent  concerning  what  you  have  done 
here  to-night.  As  for  you,  Rosalie,  I  will  give  you  ten  thousand 
francs,  which  will  be  paid  to  you  on  the  day  of  your  wedding, 
provided  you  marry  Gorenflot;  but,  in  order  to  be  married,  you 
will  have  to  be  silent;  if  not,  no  dower." 

"  Rosalie,"  said  Madame  de  Merret,  "  come  here  and  arrange 
my  hair." 

The  husband  walked  tranquilly  back  and  forth,  watching  the 
door,  the  mason,  and  his  wife,  but  without  any  outward  sign  of 


THE  STORY 


329 


injurious  suspicion.  Gorenflot  was  obliged  to  make  a  noise; 
Madame  de  Merret  seized  an  opportunity,  when  the  workman  was 
dropping  some  bricks,  and  when  her  husband  was  at  the  other 
end  of  the  room,  to  say  to  Rosalie :  — 

"  A  thousand  francs  a  year  to  you,  my  dear  child,  if  you  can  tell 
Gorenflot  to  leave  a  crack  at  the  bottom.  —  Go  and  help  him," 
she  said  coolly,  aloud. 

Monsieur  and  Madame  de  Merret  said  not  a  word  while  Goren- 
flot was  walling  up  the  door.  That  silence  was  the  result  of  design 
on  the  husband's  part,  for  he  did  not  choose  to  allow  his  wife  a 
pretext  for  uttering  words  of  double  meaning;  and  on  Madame 
de  Merret's  part,  it  was  either  prudence  or  pride.  When  the 
wall  was  half  built,  the  crafty  mason  seized  a  moment  when  the 
gentleman's  back  was  turned,  to  strike  his  pickaxe  through  one 
of  the  panes  of  the  glass  door.  That  act  gave  Madame  de  Merret 
to  understand  that  Rosalie  had  spoken  to  Gorenflot.  At  that  mo- 
ment all  three  saw  a  man's  face,  dark  and  sombre,  with  black  hair 
and  fiery  eyes.  Before  her  husband  had  turned,  the  poor  woman 
had  time  to  make  a  motion  of  her  head  to  the  stranger,  to  whom 
that  signal  meant,  "Hope!" 

At  four  o'clock,  about  daybreak,  for  it  was  September,  the  work 
was  finished.  The  mason  remained  in  the  house  under  the  eye 
of  Jean,  and  Monsieur  de  Merret  slept  in  his  wife's  chamber.  In 
the  morning,  on  rising,  he  said  carelessly :  — 

"  Ah  !  by  the  way,  I  must  go  to  the  mayor's  office  for  the  passport." 

He  put  his  hat  on  his  head,  walked  towards  the  door,  turned 
back  and  took  the  crucifix.  His  wife  fairly  trembled  with  joy. 

"  He  will  go  to  Duvivier's,"  she  thought. 

As  soon  as  the  gentleman  had  left  the  room,  Madame  de  Merret 
rang  for  Rosalie;  then,  in  a  terrible  voice,  she  cried:  — 

"  The  pickaxe !  the  pickaxe !  and  to  work !  I  saw  how  Gorenflot 
understood  last  night;  we  shall  have  time  to  make  a  hole,  and  stop 
it  up." 

In  a  twinkling  Rosalie  brought  her  mistress  a  sort  of  small  axe, 
and  she,  with  an  ardour  which  no  words  can  describe,  began  to 
demolish  the  wall.  She  had  already  loosened  several  bricks,  when, 
as  she  stepped  back  to  deal  a  blow  even  harder  than  the  preceding 
ones,  she  saw  Monsieur  de  Merret  behind  her;  she  fainted. 


330 


ENGLISH   COMPOSITION 


"Put  madame  on  her  bed,"  said  the  gentleman,  coldly. 

Anticipating  what  was  likely  to  happen  during  his  absence, 
he  had  laid  a  trap  for  his  wife;  he  had  simply  written  to  the  mayor, 
and  had  sent  a  messenger  to  Duvivier.  The  jeweller  arrived  just 
as  the  disorder  in  the  room  had  been  repaired. 

"Duvivier,"  asked  Monsieur  de  Merret,  "didn't  you  buy  some 
crucifixes  from  the  Spaniards  who  passed  through  here?" 

"No,  monsieur." 

"Very  well;  I  thank  you,"  he  said,  exchanging  with  his  wife 
a  tigerlike  glance.  — "  Jean,"  he  added,  turning  towards  his 
confidential  valet,  "you  will  have  my  meals  served  in  Madame  de 
Merret's  room;  she  is  ill,  and  I  shall  not  leave  her  until  she  is 
well  again." 

The  cruel  man  remained  with  his  wife  twenty  days.  During 
the  first  days,  w-hen  there  was  a  noise  in  the  walled-up  closet 
and  Josephine  attempted  to  implore  him  in  behalf  of  the  dying 
unknown,  he  replied,  not  allowing  her  to  utter  a  word:  — 

"You  have  sworn  on  the  cross  that  there  was  no  one  there." 

EMPHASIS   IX   THE   STORY 

The  directions  for  story-writing  so  far  given  regard  the  plot 
mainly,  and  they  apply  particularly  to  the  work  which  must  be 
done  in  the  mind  before  the  actual  writing  begins.  The  proper 
emphasis  of  the  story  also  depends  upon  the  handling  of  the  plot, 
and  here  not  only  the  preliminary  planning,  but  also  the  actual 
execution  of  the  tale  must  be  controlled  by  a  determination  to  get 
all  the  effectiveness  possible  out  of  a  given  number  of  words. 

Emphasis  in  the  story,  as  in  exposition,  depends  upon  proportion 
and  upon  the  arrangement  of  the  materials.  It  is  like  the  dis- 
position of  colors  in  a  picture.  The  painter  achieves  his  desired 
result  by  giving  the  most  space  to  the  tone  which  is  to  be  pre- 
vailing, and  by  giving  to  that  same  tone  the  most  prominent 
positions. 

In  a  story,  the  writer  who  desires  effective  proportioning  must 
have  a  care  first  of  all  for  the  antecedent  action.  This  section  of 
his  narrative  is  not  an  integral  portion  of  his  tale ;  it  is  a  necessary 
evil  which  must  be  tucked  away  at  the  beginning.  But  if  the  tale 


THE  STORY  33! 

is  to  be  properly  emphatic,  it  must  not  only  be  disposed  of  at  the  be- 
ginning, as  coherence  demands,  it  must  be  condensed  until  its  total 
length  is  but  a  small  percentage  of  the  whole  narrative.  Other- 
wise it  will  absorb  an  undue  share  of  the  reader's  attention,  with 
this  unfortunate  result,  that  his  interest  may  begin  to  flag  just  when 
the  story  proper  gets  under  way.  Or,  to  put  the  case  from  another 
point  of  view,  the  writer  may  expend  his  labor  and  his  time  upon  this 
introduction,  and  then  out  of  misapprehension  or,  if  it  is  theme 
work,  out  of  weariness,  condense  unduly  the  development  and  the 
climactic  portion  of  his  story.  For  coherence,  then,  tuck  away 
your  antecedent  action  at  the  beginning ;  and  for  emphasis  make 
it  as  brief  as  possible.  La  Grande  Breteche  is  not  a  good  model 
for  the  emphasis  of  proportion.  It  is  in  no  sense  unemphatic, 
but,  for  special  purposes,  the  introduction  to  the  story  proper  takes 
up  an  unusual  amount  of  space.  The  other  stories  included  in 
this  chapter  in  narrative  will  show  more  clearly  what  space  should 
be  given  under  normal  circumstances  to  the  various  parts  of  a  story. 

But  we  are  not  through  with  emphasis.  In  a  story,  the  causal 
relation  between  the  incidents  should  all  lead  to  a  result  which  is 
both  logical  and  striking.  This  result  is  the  climax  of  the  story. 
The  climax  should  be  the  most  emphatic  moment  in  the  tale.  In 
order  to  be  so,  it  must  not  only  be  the  most  significant  moment  in 
the  story,  it  must  also  be  placed  where  the  most  emphasis  will  fall 
upon  it.  This  would  naturally  be  the  end.  But  the  climax  can 
seldom  go  to  the  very  end  of  the  tale.  It  consists  of  some  unex- 
pected, though  logical,  happening,  some  sudden  revelation  of  an 
interesting  situation,  some  definitive  event  in  the  lives  of  the 
characters ;  and  after  this  happening,  this  revelation,  or  this  event 
there  is  usually  a  final  disposition  of  the  characters  which  must 
be  accomplished  before  the  reader  is  willing  to  relinquish  the  tale. 
So  the  climax  can  seldom  come  to  the  end.  Balzac's  ingenious 
insertion  of  the  subsequent  action  before  his  story  proper  began 
made  it  possible  to  secure  the  very  conclusion  for  his  climax.  But 
in  this  respect  also  La  Grande  Breteche  is  exceptional,  and  the  other 
stories  of  this  chapter  will  supply  much  more  typical  instances. 
Locate,  for  example,  the  climax  of  The  Man  Who  Was,  and 
notice  what  comes  after. 

Yet  the  climax  must  be  as  near  the  end  as  possible.     If  it  is  not, 


332  ENGLISH  COMPOSITION 

the  reader  will  be  bored  by  the  excess  of  narrative  which  follows  the 
highest  point  of  the  story,  for  when  he  knows  what  to  expect,  he  is 
very  nearly  ready  to  stop.  Or,  if  there  are  several  climaxes  and 
the  strongest  is  not  last,  he  will  be  disgusted  by  an  anti-climax, 
that  is,  a  moment  of  the  story  whose  significance  is  out  of  proportion 
to  the  importance  of  the  position  which  it  holds.  Put  your  main 
climax  as  near  as  may  be  to  the  very  end. 

Finally,  in  the  handling  of  a  climax,  as  in  the  handling  of  every 
part  of  a  story,  innumerable  refinements  are  possible.  The  modern 
short  story  particularly  is  a  carefully  organized  variety  of  narrative 
in  which,  the  practice  of  some  of  these  refinements  has  raised 
technique  to  a  high  level  of  efficiency.  A  study  of  Markheim, 
where  climax  and  conclusion  are  made  to  blend  in  the  last  words : 
" '  You  had  better  go  for  the  police,'  said  he ;  'I  have  killed  your 
master,' "  will  show  much  more  than  the  choice  of  a  fitting  position 
for  the  high  point  of  the  story.  The  student  will  see  that  all  the 
emphasis  in  the  tale  is  carefully  reserved  for  this  climax.  Every 
sentence  from  the  first  on  creates  an  expectancy  of  some  striking 
conclusion,  and  does  not  discharge  its  full  force  until  this  end  is 
reached.  Just  this  is  true,  also,  of  The  Cask  of  Amontillado,  where 
the  first  words  of  the  story,  "  The  thousand  injuries  of  Fortunato 
I  had  borne  as  I  best  could;  but  when  he  ventured  upon  insult, 
I  vowed  revenge,"  look  forward  to  the  climax  which  they  imply. 

This  shift  of  all  emphasis  to  the  climax  is  merely  one  way  of 
making  the  story  more  emphatic.  The  method  is  useful  because 
the  modern  short  story  usually  depends  for  success,  not  upon  a  chain 
of  incidents,  each  a  little  more  effective  than  its  predecessors,  as  in 
Rip  Van  Winkle,  but  upon  a  single  impression  which  is  to  be  the 
total  effect  of  the  story.  For  practice,  the  old-fashioned  tale, 
of  which  Rip  Van  Winkle  is  a  typical  example,  is  the  most  profit- 
able variety  for  a  beginner  to  experiment  with.  But  as  soon  as  he 
masters  the  elements  of  Unity,  Coherence,  and  Emphasis  in  nar- 
rative, he  should  attempt  an  impressionistic  story,  for  in  it  he  will 
have  to  exercise  these  three  principles  strenuously  and  to  a  high 
and  perfect  degree. 


THE  STORY  ,.,., 

THE  MAN  WHO  WAS 

RUDYARD    KIPLING 

Let  it  be  clearly  understood  that  the  Russian  is  a  delightful 
person  till  he  tucks  his  shirt  in.  As  an  Oriental  he  is  charming. 
It  is  only  when  he  insists  upon  being  treated  as  the  most  easterly 
of  Western  peoples,  instead  of  the  most  westerly  of  Easterns,  that 
he  becomes  a  racial  anomaly  extremely  difficult  to  handle.  '  The 
host  never  knows  which  side  of  his  nature  is  going  to  turn  up  next. 

Dirkovitch  was  a  Russian  —  a  Russian  of  the  Russians  —  who 
appeared  to  get  his  bread  by  serving  the  czar  as  an  officer  in  a 
Cossack  regiment,  and  corresponding  for  a  Russian  newspaper 
with  a  name  that  was  never  twice  alike.  He  was  a  handsome 
young  Oriental,  with  a  taste  for  wandering  through  unexplored 
portions  of  the  earth,  and  he  arrived  in  India  from  nowhere  in 
particular.  At  least  no  living  man  could  ascertain  whether  it  was 
by  way  of  Balkh,  Budukhshan,  Chitral,  Beloochistan,  Nepaul,  or 
anywhere  else.  The  Indian  government,  being  in  an  unusually 
affable  mood,  gave  orders  that  he  was  to  be  civilly  treated,  and 
shown  everything  that  was  tp  be  seen;  so  he  drifted,  talking  bad 
English  and  worse  French,  from  one  city  to  another  till  he  fore- 
gathered with  her  Majesty's  White  Hussars  in  the  city  of  Peshawur, 
which  stands  at  the  mouth  of  that  narrow  sword-cut  in  the  hills 
that  men  call  the  Khyber  Pass.  He  was  undoubtedly  an  officer, 
and  he  was  decorated,  after  the  manner  of  the  Russians,  with  little 
enameled  crosses,  and  he  could  talk,  and  (though  this  has  nothing 
to  do  with  his  merits)  he  had  been  given  up  as  a  hopeless  task  or 
case  by  the  Black  Tyrones,  who,  individually  and  collectively, 
with  hot  whisky  and  honey,  mulled  brandy  and  mixed  drinks  of  all 
kinds,  had  striven  in  all  hospitality  to  make  him  drunk.  And 
when  the  Black  Tyrones,  who  are  exclusively  Irish,  fail  to  disturb 
the  peace  of  head  of  a  foreigner,  that  foreigner  is  certain  to  be  a 
superior  man. 

The  White  Hussars  were  as  conscientious  in  choosing  their  wine 
as  in  charging  the  enemy.  All  that  they  possessed,  including 
some  wondrous  brandy,  was  placed  at  the  absolute  disposition 


334  ENGLISH   COMPOSITION 

of  Dirkovitch,  and  he  enjoyed  himself  hugely  —  even  more  than 
among  the  Black  Tyrones. 

But  he  remained  distressingly  European  through  it  all.  The 
White  Hussars  were  —  "  My  dear  true  friends,"  u  Fellow-soldiers 
glorious,"  and  "Brothers  inseparable."  He  would  unburden  him- 
self by  the  hour  on  the  glorious  future  that  awaited  the  combined 
arms  of  England  and  Russia  when  their  hearts  and  their  territories 
should  run  side  by  side,  and  the  great  mission  of  civilizing  Asia 
should  begin.  That  was  unsatisfactory,  because  Asia  is  not  going 
to  be  civilized,  after  the  methods  of  the  West.  There  is  too  much 
Asia,  and  she  is  too  old.  You  cannot  reform  a  lady  of  many  lovers, 
and  Asia  has  been  insatiable  in  her  flirtations  aforetime.  She  will 
never  attend  Sunday-school,  or  learn  to  vote  save  with  swords 
for  tickets. 

Dirkovitch  knew  this  as  well  as  any  one  else,  but  it  suited  him 
to  talk  special-correspondently  and  to  make  himself  as  genial  as 
he  could.  Now  and  then  he  volunteered  a  little,  a  very  little,  in- 
formation about  his  own  Sotnia  of  Cossacks,  left  apparently  to 
look  after  themselves  somewhere  at  the  back  of  beyond.  He  had 
done  rough  work  in  Central  Asia,  and  had  seen  rather  more  help- 
yourself  fighting  than  most  men  of  his  years.  But  he  was  careful 
never  to  betray  his  superiority,  and  more  than  careful  to  praise  on 
all  occasions  the  appearance,  drill,  uniform,  and  organization  of  her 
Majesty's  White  Hussars.  And,  indeed,  they  were  a  regiment  to 
be  admired.  \Vhen  Mrs.  Durgan,  widow  of  the  late  Sir  John 
Durgan,  arrived  in  their  station,  and  after  a  short  time  had  been 
proposed  to  by  every  single  man  at  mess,  she  put  the  public  senti- 
ment very  neatly  when  she  explained  that  they  were  all  so  nice 
that  unless  she  could  marry  them  all,  including  the  colonel  and 
some  majors  who  were  already  married,  she  was  not  going  to 
content  herself  with  one  of  them.  WTierefore  she  wedded  a  little 
man  in  a  rifle  regiment  —  being  by  nature  contradictious  —  and 
the  White  Hussars  were  going  to  wear  crape  on  their  arms,  but 
compromised  by  attending  the  wedding  in  full  force,  and  lining  the 
aisle  with  unutterable  reproach.  She  had  jilted  them  all  —  from 
Basset-Holmer,  the  senior  captain,  to  Little  Mildred,  the  last 
subaltern,  who  could  have  given  her  four  thousand  a  year  and  a 
title. 


THE  STORY  335 

The  only  persons  who  did  not  share  the  general  regard  for  the 
White  Hussars  were  a  few  thousand  gentlemen  of  Jewish  extraction 
who  lived  across  the  border,  and  answered  to  the  name  of  Pathan. 
They  had  only  met  the  regiment  officially,  and  for  something  less 
than  twenty  minutes,  but  the  interview,  which  was  complicated 
with  many  casualties,  had  filled  them  with  prejudice.  They  even 
called  the  White  Hussars  "children  of  the  devil,"  and  sons  of  per- 
sons whom  it  would  be  perfectly  impossible  to  meet  in  decent 
society.  Yet  they  were  not  above  making  their  aversion  fill  their 
money-belts.  The  regiment  possessed  carbines,  beautiful  Martini- 
Henry  carbines,  that  would  cob  a  bullet  into  an  enemy's  camp  at 
one  thousand  yards,  and  were  even  handier  than  the  long  riile. 
Therefore  they  were  coveted  all  along  the  border,  and,  since 
demand  inevitably  breeds  supply,  they  were  supplied  at  the  risk 
of  life  and  limb  for  exactly  their  weight  in  coined  silver  —  seven 
and  one-half  pounds  of  rupees,  or  sixteen  pounds  and  a  few  shillings 
each,  reckoning  the  rupee  at  par.  They  were  stolen  at  night  by 
snaky-haired  thieves  that  crawled  on  their  stomachs  under  the  nose 
of  the  sentries;  they  disappeared  mysteriously  from  arm-racks; 
and  in  the  hot  weather,  when  all  the  doors  and  windows  were  open, 
they  vanished  like  puffs  of  their  own  smoke.  The  border  people 
desired  them  first  for  their  own  family  vendettas,  and  then  for 
contingencies.  But  in  the  long  cold  nights  of  the  Northern  Indian 
winter  they  were  stolen  most  extensively.  The  traffic  of  murder 
was  liveliest  among  the  hills  at  that  season,  and  prices  ruled  high. 
The  regimental  guards  were  first  doubled  and  then  trebled.  A 
trooper  does  not  much  care  if  he  loses  a  weapon  —  government 
must  make  it  good  —  but  he  deeply  resents  the  loss  of  his  sleep. 
The  regiment  grew  very  angry,  and  one  night-thief  who  managed 
to  limp  away  bears  the  visible  marks  of  their  anger  upon  him  to 
this  hour.  That  incident  stopped  the  burglaries  for  a  time,  and 
the  guards  were  reduced  accordingly,  and  the  'regiment  devoted 
itself  to  polo  with  unexpected  results,  for  it  beat  by  two  goals  to 
one  that  very  terrible  polo  corps,  the  Lushkar  Light  Horse,  though 
the  latter  had  four  ponies  apiece  for  a  short  hour's  fight,  as  well 
as  a  native  officer  who  played  like  a  lambent  flame  across  the 
ground. 

Then  they  gave  a  dinner  to  celebrate  the  event.    The  Lushkar 


336  ENGLISH  COMPOSITION 

team  came,  and  Dirkovitch  came,  in  the  fullest  full  uniform  of 
a  Cossack  officer,  which  is  as  full  as  a  dressing-gown,  and  was 
introduced  to  the  Lushkars,  and  opened  his  eyes  as  he  regarded 
them.  They  were  lighter  men  than  the  Hussars,  and  they  carried 
themselves  with  the  swing  that  is  the  peculiar  right  of  the  Punjab 
frontier  force  and  all  irregular  horse.  Like  everything  else  in  the 
service,  it  has  to  be  learned;  but,  unlike  many  things,  it  is  never 
forgotten,  and  remains  on  the  body  till  death. 

The  great  beam-roofed  mess-room  of  the  White  Hussars  was  a 
sight  to  be  remembered.  All  the  mess  plate  was  on  the  long 
table  —  the  same  table  that  had  served  up  the  bodies  of  five  dead 
officers  in  a  forgotten  fight  long  and  long  ago  —  the  dingy,  battered 
standards  faced  the  door  of  entrance,  clumps  of  winter  roses  lay 
between  the  silver  candlesticks,  the  portraits  of  eminent  officers 
deceased  looked  down  on  their  successors  from  between  the  heads 
of  sambhur,  nilghai,  maikhor,  and,  pride  of  all  the  mess,  two 
grinning  snow-leopards  that  had  cost  Basset-Holmer  four  months' 
leave  that  he  might  have  spent  in  England  instead  of  on  the  road 
to  Thibet,  and  the  daily  risk  of  his  life  on  ledge,  snow-slide,  and 
glassy  grass-slope. 

The  servants,  in  spotless  white  muslin  and  the  crest  of  their 
regiments  on  the  brow  of  their  turbans,  waited  behind  their  masters, 
who  were  clad  in  the  scarlet  and  gold  of  the  White  Hussars  and  the 
cream  and  silver  of  the  Lushkar  Light  Horse.  Dirkovitch 's  dull 
green  uniform  was  the  only  dark  spot  at  the  board,  but  his 
big  onyx  eyes  made  up  for  it.  He  was  fraternizing  effusively 
with  the  captain  of  the  Lushkar  team,  who  was  wondering  how 
many  of  Dirkovitch's  Cossacks  his  own  long,  lathy  down-country- 
men could  account  for  in  a  fair  charge.  But  one  does  not  speak 
of  these  things  openly. 

The  talk  rose  higher  and  higher,  and  the  regimental  band  played 
between  the  courses,  as  is  the  immemorial  custom,  till  all  tongues 
ceased  for  a  moment  with  the  removal  of  the  dinner  slips  and  the 
First  Toast  of  Obligation,  when  the  colonel,  rising,  said:  "Mr. 
Vice,  the  Queen,"  and  Little  Mildred  from  the  bottom  of  the  table 
answered:  "The  Queen,  God  bless  her!"  and  the  big  spurs 
clanked  as  the  big  men  heaved  themselves  up  and  drank  the 
Queen,  upon  whose  pay  they  were  falsely  supposed  to  pay  their 


THE  STORY  337 

mess-bills.  That  sacrament  of  the  mess  never  grows  old,  and 
never  ceases  to  bring  a  lump  into  the  throat  of  the  listener  where- 
ever  he  be,  by  land  or  by  sea.  Dirkovitch  rose  with  his  "  brothers 
glorious,"  but  he  could  not  understand.  No  one  but  an  officer 
can  understand  what  the  toast  means;  and  the  bulk  have  more 
sentiment  than  comprehension.  It  all  comes  to  the  same  in  the 
end,  as  the  enemy  said  when  he  was  wriggling  on  a  lance  point. 
Immediately  after  the  little  silence  that  follows  on  the  ceremony, 
there  entered  the  native  officer  who  had  played  for  the  Lushkar 
team.  He  could  not  of  course  eat  with  the  mess,  but  he  came  in  at 
dessert,  all  six  feet  of  him,  with  the  blue-and-silver  turban  atop  and 
the  big  black  top-boots  below.  The  mess  rose  joyously  as  he  thrust 
forward  the  hilt  of  his  saber,  in  token  of  fealty,  for  the  colonel  of 
the  White  Hussars  to  touch,  and  dropped  into  a  vacant  chair 
amid  shouts  of  "Rung  ho!  Hira  Singh!"  (which  being  trans- 
lated means  "  Go  in  and  win ! ") .  "  Did  I  whack  you  over  the  knee, 
old  man?"  "Ressaidar  Sahib,  what  the  devil  made  you  play  that 
kicking  pig  of  a  pony  in  the  last  ten  minutes?"  "Shabash,  Res- 
saidar Sahib !"  Then  the  voice  of  the  colonel:  "The  health  of 
Ressaidar  Hira  Singh!" 

After  the  shouting  had  died  away  Hira  Singh  rose  to  reply,  for 
he  was  the  cadet  of  a  royal  house,  the  son  of  a  king's  son,  and 
knew  what  was  due  on  these  occasions.  Thus  he  spoke  in  the 
vernacular :  — 

"  Colonel  Sahib  and  officers  of  this  regiment,  much  honor  have 
you  done  me.  This  will  I  remember.  We  came  down  from  afar 
to  play  you ;  but  we  were  beaten."  ("  No  fault  of  yours,  Ressaidar 
Sahib.  Played  on  our  own  ground,  y'  know.  Your  ponies  were 
cramped  from  the  railway.  Don't  apologize.")  "Therefore 
perhaps  we  will  come  again  if  it  be  so  ordained."  ("Hear!  Hear, 
hear,  indeed!  Bravo!  H'sh!")  "Then  we  will  play  you 
afresh"  ("Happy  to  meet  you"),  "till  there  are  left  no  feet  upon 
our  ponies.  Thus  far  for  sport."  He  dropped  one  hand  on  his 
swora-hilt,  and  his  eye  wandered  to  Dirkovitch  lolling  back  in  his 
chair.  "But  if  by  the  will  of  God  there  arises  any  other  game 
which  is  not  the  polo  game,  then  be  assured,  Colonel  Sahib  and 
officers,  that  we  shall  play  it  out  side  by  side,  though  they"  • 
again  his  eye  sought  Dirkovitch  —  "  though  they,  I  say,  have  fifty 


338  ENGLISH   COMPOSITION 

ponies  to  our  one  horse."  And  with  a  deep-mouthed  Rung  ho! 
that  rang  like  a  musket-butt  on  flag-stones,  he  sat  down  amid 
shoutings. 

Dirkovitch,  who  had  devoted  himself  steadily  to  the  brandy  — 
the  terrible  brandy  aforementioned  —  did  not  understand,  nor 
did  the  expurgated  translations  offered  to  him  at  all  convey  the 
point.  Decidedly  Hira  Singh's  was  the  speech  of  the  evening,  and 
the  clamor  might  have  continued  to  the  dawn  had  it  not  been 
broken  by  the  noise  of  a  shot  without  that  sent  every  man  feeling 
at  his  defenseless  left  side.  It  is  notable  that  Dirkovitch  "  reached 
back,"  after  the  American  fashion  —  a  gesture  that  set  the  captain 
of  the  Lushkar  team  wondering  how  Cossack  officers  were  armed 
at  mess.  Then  there  was  a  scuffle  and  a  yell  of  pain. 

"Carbine-stealing  again!"  said  the  adjutant,  calmly  sinking 
back  in  his  chair.  "  This  comes  of  reducing  the  guards.  I  hope 
the  sentries  have  killed  him." 

The  feet  of  armed  men  pounded  on  the  veranda  flags,  and  it 
sounded  as  though  something  was  being  dragged. 

"Why  don't  they  put  him  in  the  cells  till  the  morning?"  said 
the  colonel,  testily.  "See  if  they've  damaged  him,  sergeant." 

The  mess-sergeant  fled  out  into  the  darkness,  and  returned  with 
two  troopers  and  a  corporal,  all  very  much  perplexed. 

"Caught  a  man  stealin'  carbines,  sir,"  said  the  corporal. 
"Leastways  'e  was  crawlin'  toward  the  barricks,  sir,  past  the 
main-road  sentries;  an'  the  sentry  'e  says,  sir  — 

The  limp  heap  of  rags  upheld  by  the  three  men  groaned.  Never 
was  seen  so  destitute  and  demoralized  an  Afghan.  He  was  turban- 
less,  shoeless,  caked  with  dirt,  and  all  but  dead  with  rough  hand- 
ling. Hira  Singh  started  slightly  at  the  sound  of  the  man's  pain. 
Dirkovitch  took  another  glass  of  brandy. 

"  What  does  the  sentry  say?"  said  the  colonel. 

"Sez  he  speaks  English,  sir,"  said  the  corporal. 

"  So  you  brought  him  into  mess  instead  of  handing  him  over  to 
the  sergeant !  If  he  spoke  all  the  tongues  of  the  Pentecost,  you've 
no  business — " 

Again  the  bundle  groaned  and  muttered.  Little  Mildred  had 
risen  from  his  place  to  inspect.  He  jumped  back  as  though  he 
had  been  shot. 


THE  STORY 


339 


"Perhaps  it  would  be  better,  sir,  to  send  the  men  away," 
said  he  to  the  colonel,  for  he  was  a  much-privileged  subaltern. 
He  put  his  arms  round  the  rag^bound  horror  as  he  spoke,  and 
dropped  him  into  a  chair.  It  may  not  have  been  explained  that  the 
littleness  of  Mildred  lay  in  his  being  six  feet  four,  and  big  in  pro- 
portion. The  corporal,  seeing  that  an  officer  was  disposed  to 
look  after  the  capture,  and  that  the  colonel's  eye  was  beginning  to 
blaze,  promptly  removed  himself  and  his  men.  The  mess  was 
left  alone  with  the  carbine  thief,  who  laid  his  head  on  the  table 
and  wept  bitterly,  hopelessly,  and  inconsolably,  as  little  children 
weep. 

Hira  Singh  leaped  to  his  feet  with  a  long-drawn  vernacular 
oath.  "Colonel  Sahib,"  said  he,  "that  man  is  no  Afghan,  for 
they  weep,  '  Ail  AiT  Nor  is  he  of  Hindoostan,  for  they  weep, 
lOh!  Ho!'  He  weeps  after  the  fashion  of  the  white  men,  who 
say,  lOw!  Ou<IJ" 

"Now  where  the  dickens  did  you  get  that  knowledge,  Hira 
Singh?"  said  the  captain  of  the  Lushkar  team. 

"Hear  him  !"  said  Hira  Singh,  simply,  pointing  at  the  crumpled 
figure,  that  wept  as  though  it  would  never  cease. 

"  He  said,  '  My  God ! ' "  said  Little  Mildred.  "  I  heard  him 
say  it." 

The  colonel  and  the  mess-room  looked  at  the  man  in  silence. 
It  is  a  horrible  thing  to  hear  a  man  cry.  A  woman  can  sob  from 
the  top  of  her  palate,  or  her  lips,  or  anywhere  else,  but  a  man  cries 
from  his  diaphragm,  and  it  rends  him  to  pieces. 

"  Poor  devil ! "  said  the  colonel,  coughing  tremendously.  "  We 
ought  to  send  him  to  hospital.  He's  been  mishandled." 

Now  the  adjutant  loved  his  rifles.  They  were  to  him  as  his 
grandchildren  —  the  men  standing  in  the  first  place.  He  grunted 
rebelliously :  "  I  can  understand  an  Afghan  stealing,  because  he's 
made  that  way.  But  I  can't  understand  his  crying.  That  makes 
it  worse." 

The  brandy  must  have  affected  Dirkovitch,  for  he  lay  bad 
his  chair  and  stared  at  the  ceiling.    There  was  nothing  special 
in  the  ceiling  beyond  a  shadow  as  of  a  huge  black  coffin, 
to  some  peculiarity  in  the  construction  of  the  mess-room    tt 
shadow  was  always  thrown  when  the  candles  were  lighted. 


340  ENGLISH   COMPOSITION 

never  disturbed  the  digestion  of  the  White  Hussars.  They  were, 
in  fact,  rather  proud  of  it. 

"Is  he  going  to  cry  all  night,"  said  the  colonel,  "or  are  we 
supposed  to  sit  up  with  Little  Mildred's  guest  until  he  feels 
better?" 

The  man  in  the  chair  threw  up  his  head  and  stared  at  the  mess. 

"  Oh,  my  God ! "  said  the  man  in  the  chair,  and  every  soul  in 
the  mess  rose  to  his  feet.  Then  the  Lushkar  captain  did  a  deed 
for  which  he  ought  to  have  been  given  the  Victoria  Cross  —  dis- 
tinguished gallantry  in  a  fight  against  overwhelming  curiosity. 
He  picked  up  his  team  with  his  eyes  as  the  hostess  picks  up  the 
ladies  at  the  opportune  moment,  and  pausing  only  by  the  colonel's 
chair  to  say:  "This  isn't  our  affair,  you  know,  sir,"  led  the  team 
into  the  veranda  and  the  gardens.  Hira  Singh  was  the  last,  and 
he  looked  at  Dirkovitch  as  he  moved.  But  Dirkovitch  had  de- 
parted into  a  brandy  paradise  of  his  own.  His  lips  moved  without 
sound,  and  he  was  studying  the  coffin  on  the  ceiling. 

"White  —  white  all  over,"  said  Basset-Holmer,  the  adjutant. 
"  What  a  pernicious  renegade  he  must  be !  I  wonder  where  he 
came  from?" 

The  colonel  shook  the  man  gently  by  the  arm,  and  "Who  are 
you?"  said  he. 

There  was  no  answer.  The  man  stared  round  the  mess-room 
and  smiled  in  the  colonel's  face.  Little  Mildred,  who  was  always 
more  of  a  woman  than  a  man  till  "Boot  and  saddle"  was  sounded, 
repeated  the  question  in  a  voice  that  would  have  drawn  confidences 
from  a  geyser.  The  man  only  smiled.  Dirkovitch,  at  the  far 
end  of  the  table,  slid  gently  from  his  chair  to  the  floor.  No  son  of 
Adam,  in  this  present  imperfect  world,  can  mix  the  Hussars' 
champagne  with  the  Hussars'  brandy  by  five  and  eight  glasses 
of  each  without  remembering  the  pit  whence  he  has  been  digged 
and  descending  thither.  The  band  began  to  play  the  tune  with 
which  the  White  Hussars,  from  the  date  of  their  formation,  pref- 
ace all  their  functions.  They  would  sooner  be  disbanded  than 
abandon  that  tune.  It  is  a  part  of  their  system.  The  man 
straightened  himself  in  his  chair  and  drummed  on  the  table  with 
his  fingers. 

"  I  don't  see  why  we  should  entertain  lunatics,"  said  the  colonel ; 


THE  STORY  34I 

"  call  a  guard  and  send  him  off  to  the  cells.  We'll  look  into  the 
business  in  the  morning.  Give  him  a  glass  of  wine  first,  though." 
Little  Mildred  filled  a  sherry  glass  with  the  brandy  and  thrust 
it  over  to  the  man.  He  drank,  and  the  tune  rose  louder,  and  he 
straightened  himself  yet  more.  Then  he  put  out  his  long-taloned 
hands  to  a  piece  of  plate  opposite  and  fingered  it  lovingly.  There 
was  a  mystery  connected  with  that  piece  of  plate  in  the  shape  of 
a  spring,  which  converted  what  was  a  seven-branched  candlestick, 
three  springs  each  side  and  one  in  the  middle,  into  a  sort 
of  wheel-spoke  candelabrum.  He  found  the  spring,  pressed  it, 
and  laughed  weakly.  He  rose  from  his  chair  and  inspected  a  pic- 
ture on  the  wall,  then  moved  on  to  another  picture,  the  mess  watch- 
ing him  without  a  word.  When  he  came  to  the  mantel-piece, 
he  shook  his  head  and  seemed  distressed.  A  piece  of  plate  rep- 
resenting a  mounted  hussar  in  full  uniform  caught  his  eye.  He 
pointed  to  it,  and  then  to  the  mantel-piece,  with  inquiry  in  his  eyes. 
"What  is  it  —  oh,  what  is  it?"  said  Little  Mildred.  Then, 
as  a  mother  might  speak  to  a  child,  "That  is  a  horse  —  yes,  a 
horse." 

Very  slowly  came  the  answer,  in  a  thick,  passionless  guttural: 
"  Yes,  I  —  have  seen.  But  —  where  is  the  horse ? " 

He  could  have  heard  the  hearts  of  the  mess  beating  as  the  men 
drew  back  to  give  the  stranger  full  room  in  his  wanderings.  There 
was  no  question  of  calling  the  guard. 

Again  he  spoke,  very  slowly:  " Where  is  our  horse?" 
There  is  but  one  horse  in  the  White  Hussars,  and  his  portrait 
hangs  outside  the  door  of  the  mess-room.  He  is  the  piebald 
drum-horse,  the  king  of  the  regimental  band,  that  served  the 
regiment  for  seven  and  thirty  years,  and  in  the  end  was  shot  for 
old  age.  Half  the  mess  tore  the  thing  down  from  its  place  and 
thrust  it  into  the  man's  hands.  He  placed  it  above  the  mantel- 
piece ;  it  clattered  on  the  ledge,  as  his  poor  hands  dropped  it,  and 
he  staggered  toward  the  bottom  of  the  table,  falling  into  Mildred's 
chair.  The  band  began  to  play  the  "  River  of  Years"  waltz,  and 
the  laughter  from  the  gardens  came  into  the  tobacco-scented 
mess-room.  But  nobody,  even  the  youngest,  was  thinking  of 
waltzes.  The  men  all  spoke  to  one  another  something  after  this 
fashion:  "The  drum-horse  hasn't  hung  over  the  mantel-piece 


342  ENGLISH   COMPOSITION 

since  '67."  "How  does  he  know?"  "Mildred,  go  and  speak  to 
him  again."  "  Colonel,  what  are  you  going  to  do  ?"  "  Oh,  dry 
up,  and  give  the  poor  devil  a  chance  to  pull  himself  together ! " 
"It  isn't  possible,  anyhow.  The  man's  a  lunatic." 

Little  Mildred  stood  at  the  colonel's  side  talking  into  his  ear. 
"  Will  you  be  good  enough  to  take  your  seats,  please,  gentlemen  ?  " 
he  said,  and  the  mess  dropped  into  the  chairs. 

Only  Dirkovitch's  seat,  next  to  Little  Mildred's,  was  blank, 
and  Little  Mildred  himself  had  found  Hira  Singh's  place.  The 
wide-eyed  mess-sergeant  filled  the  glasses  in  dead  silence.  Once 
more  the  colonel  rose,  but  his  hand  shook,  and  the  port  spilled  on 
the  table  as  he  looked  straight  at  the  man  in  Little  Mildred's  chair 
and  said,  hoarsely:  "Mr.  Vice,  the  Queen."  There  was  a  little 
pause,  but  the  man  sprang  to  his  feet  and  answered,  without 
hesitation :  "  The  Queen,  God  bless  her ! "  and  as  he  emptied  the 
thin  glass  he  snapped  the  shank  between  his  fingers. 

Long  and  long  ago,  when  the  Empress  of  India  was  a  young 
woman,  and  there  were  no  unclean  ideals  in  the  land,  it  was  the 
custom  in  a  few  messes  to  drink  the  queen's  toast  in  broken  glass, 
to  the  huge  delight  of  the  mess  contractors.  The  custom  is  now 
dead,  because  there  is  nothing  to  break  anything  for,  except  now 
and  again  the  word  of  a  government,  and  that  has  been  broken 
already. 

"  That  settles  it,"  said  the  colonel,  with  a  gasp.  "  He's  not  a 
sergeant.  What  in  the  world  is  he?" 

The  entire  mess  echoed  the  word,  and  the  volley  of  questions 
would  have  scared  any  man.  Small  wonder  that  the  ragged, 
filthy  invader  could  only  smile  and  shake  his  head. 

From  under  the  table,  calm  and  smiling  urbanely,  rose  Dirkovitch , 
who  had  been  roused  from  healthful  slumber  by  feet  upon  his  body. 
By  the  side  of  the  man  he  rose,  and  the  man  shrieked  and  groveled 
at  his  feet.  It  was  a  horrible  sight,  coming  so  swiftly  upon  the 
pride  and  glory  of  the  toast  that  had  brought  the  strayed  wits 
together. 

Dirkovitch  made  no  offer  to  raise  him,  but  Little  Mildred  heaved 
him  up  in  an  instant.  It  is  not  good  that  a  gentleman  who  can  answer 
to  the  queen's  toast  should  lie  at  the  feet  of  a  subaltern  of  Cossacks. 

The  hasty  action  tore  the  wretch's  upper  clothing  nearly  to  the 


THE  STORY  343 

waist,  and  his  body  was  seamed  with  dry  black  scars.  There 
is  only  one  weapon  in  the  world  that  cuts  in  parallel  lines,  and  it  is 
neither  the  cane  nor  the  cat.  Dirkovitch  saw  the  marks,  and  the 
pupils  of  his  eyes  dilated  —  also,  his  face  changed.  He  said  some- 
thing that  sounded  like  "Shto  ve  takete;"  and  the  man,  fawning, 
answered  "  Chetyre." 

"What's  that?"  said  everybody  together. 

"  His  number.  That  is  number  four,  you  know."  Dirkovitch 
spoke  very  thickly. 

"What  has  a  queen's  officer  to  do  with  a  qualified  number?" 
said  the  colonel,  and  there  rose  an  unpleasant  growl  round  the 
table. 

"How  can  I  tell?"  said  the  affable  Oriental,  with  a  sweet  smile. 
"He  is  a  —  how  you  have  it?  —  escape  —  runaway,  from  over 
there." 

He  nodded  toward  the  darkness  of  the  night. 

"Speak  to  him,  if  he'll  answer  you,  and  speak  to  him  gently," 
said  Little  Mildred,  settling  the  man  in  a  chair.  It  seemed  most 
improper  to  all  present  that  Dirkovitch  should  sip  brandy  as  he 
talked  in  purring,  spitting  Russian  to  the  creature  who  answered 
so  feebly  and  with  such  evident  dread.  But  since  Dirkovitch  ap- 
peared to  understand,  no  man  said  a  word.  They  breathed 
heavily,  leaning  forward  in  the  long  gaps  of  the  conversation.  The 
next  time  that  they  have  no  engagements  on  hand  the  White 
Hussars  intend  to  go  to  St.  .Petersburg  and  learn  Russian. 

"He  does  not  know  how  many  years  ago,"  said  Dirkovitch, 
facing  the  mess,  "  but  he  says  it  was  very  long  ago,  in  a  war.  I 
think  that  there  was  an  accident.  He  says  he  was  of  this  glorious 
and  distinguished  regiment  in  the  war." 

"The  rolls!  The  rolls!  Holmer,  get  the  rolls!"  said  Little 
Mildred,  and  the  adjutant  dashed  off  bareheaded  to  the  orderly- 
room,  where  the  rolls  of  the  regiment  were  kept.  He  returned  just 
in  time  to  hear  Dirkovitch  conclude:  "Therefore  I  am  most  sorry 
to  say  there  was  an  accident,  which  would  have  been  reparable  if 
he  had  apologized  to  that  our  colonel,  which  he  had  insulted." 

Another  growl,  which  the  colonel  tried  to  beat  down.  The  mess 
was  in  no  mood  to  weigh  insults  to  Russian  colonels  just  then. 

"  He  does  not  remember,  but  I  think  that  there  was  an  accident, 


344  ENGLISH   COMPOSITION 

and  so  he  was  not  exchanged  among  the  prisoners,  but  he  was  sent 
to  another  place  —  how  do  you  say  ?  —  the  country.  So,  he  says, 
he  came  here.  He  does  not  know  how  he  came.  Eh  ?  He  was 
at  Chepany"  —  the  man  caught  the  word,  nodded,  and  shivered  — 
"  at  Zhigansk  and  Irkutsk.  I  cannot  understand  how  he  escaped. 
He  says,  too,  that  he  was  in  the  forests  for  many  years,  but  how 
many  years  he  has  forgotten  —  that  with  many  things.  It  was 
an  accident;  done  because  he  did  not  apologize  to  that  our  colonel. 
Ah!" 

Instead  of  echoing  Dirkovitch's  sigh  of  regret,  it  is  sad  to  record 
that  the  White  Hussars  livelily  exhibited  unchristian  delight  and 
other  emotions,  hardly  restrained  by  their  sense  of  hospitality. 
Holmer  flung  the  frayed  and  yellow  regimental  rolls  on  the  table, 
and  the  men  flung  themselves  atop  of  these. 

"Steady!  Fifty-six  —  fifty-five  —  fifty-four,"  said  Holmer. 
"Here  we  are,  'Lieutenant  Austin  Limmason  —  missing.'  That 
was  before  Sebastopol.  What  an  infernal  shame !  Insulted  one 
of  their  colonels,  and  was  quietly  shipped  off.  Thirty  years  of 
his  life  wiped  out." 

"But  he  never  apologized.  Said  he'd  see  him  first," 

chorused  the  mess. 

"Poor  devil!  I  suppose  he  never  had  the  chance  afterward. 
How  did  he  come  here?"  said  the  colonel. 

The  dingy  heap  in  the  chair  could  give  no  answer. 

"Do  you  know  who  you  are?" 

It  laughed  weakly. 

"Do  you  know  that  you  are  Limmason — Lieutenant  Limmason, 
of  the  White  Hussars?" 

Swift  as  a  shot  came  the  answer,  in  a  slightly  surprised  tone: 
"Yes,  I'm  Limmason,  of  course."  The  light  died  out  in  his  eyes, 
and  he  collapsed  afresh,  watching  every  motion  of  Dirkovitch  with 
terror.  A  flight  from  Siberia  may  fix  a  few  elementary  facts  in  the 
mind,  but  it  does  not  lead  to  continuity  of  thought.  The  man 
could  not  explain  how,  like  a  homing  pigeon,  he  had  found  his  way 
to  his  old  mess  again.  Of  what  he  had  suffered  or  seen  he  knew 
nothing.  He  cringed  before  Dirkovitch  as  instinctively  as  he  had 
pressed  the  spring  of  the  candlestick,  sought  the  picture  of  the 
drum-horse,  and  answered  to  the  queen's  toast.  The  rest  was  a 


THE  STORY 


345 


blank  that  the  dreaded  Russian  tongue  could  only  in  part  remove. 
His  head  bowed  on  his  breast,  and  he  giggled  and  cowered  alter- 
nately. 

The  devil  that  lived  in  the  brandy  prompted  Dirkovitch  at  this 
extremely  inopportune  moment  to  make  a  speech.  He  rose,  sway- 
ing slightly,  gripped  the  table-edge,  while  his  eyes  glowed  like  opals, 
and  began:  — 

"  Fellow-soldiers  glorious  —  true  friends  and  hospitables.  It 
was  an  accident,  and  deplorable  —  most  deplorable."  Here  he 
smiled  sweetly  all  round  the  mess.  "But  you  will  think  of  this 
little  —  little  thing.  So  little,  is  it  not?  The  czar!  Posh!  I 
slap  my  fingers  —  I  snap  my  fingers  at  him.  Do  I  believe  in  him  ? 
No !  But  the  Slav  who  has  done  nothing,  him  I  believe.  Seventy 
—  how  much  ?  —  millions  that  have  done  nothing  —  not  one  thing. 
Napoleon  was  an  episode."  He  banged  a  hand  on  the  table. 
"  Hear  you,  old  peoples,  we  have  done  nothing  in  the  world  — 
out  here.  All  our  work  is  to  do :  and  it  shall  be  done,  old  peoples. 
Get  away!"  He  waved  his  hand  imperiously,  and  pointed  to  the 
man.  "  You  see  him.  He  is  not  good  to  see.  He  was  just  one 
little  —  oh,  so  little  —  accident,  that  no  one  remembered.  Now 
he  is  That.  So  will  you  be,  brother-soldiers  so  brave  —  so  will  you 
be.  But  you  will  never  come  back.  You  will  all  go  where  he  is 
gone,  or — "  he  pointed  to  the  great  coffin  shadow  on  the  ceiling, 
and  muttering,  "Seventy  millions  — get  away,  you  old  people," 
fell  asleep. 

"Sweet,  and  to  the  point,"  said  Little  Mildred.  "What's  the 
use  of  getting  wroth?  Let's  make  the  poor  devil  comfortable." 

But  that  was  a  matter  suddenly  and  swiftly  taken  from  the  loving 
hands  of  the  White  Hussars.  The  lieutenant  had  returned  only 
to  go  away  again  three  days  later,  when  the  wail  of  the  "Dead 
March"  and  the  tramp  of  the  squadrons  told  the  wondering 
station,  that  saw  no  gap  in  the  table,  an  officer  of  the  regiment  had 
resigned  his  new-found  commission. 

And  Dirkovitch  —  bland,  supple,  and  always  genial  — went 
away  too,  by  a  night  train.  Little  Mildred  and  another  saw  him 
off,  for  he  was  the  guest  of  the  mess,  and  even  had  he  smitten  the 
colonel  with  the  open  hand,  the  law  of  the  mess  allowed  no  re- 
laxation of  hospitality. 


346  EXGLISH   COMPOSITION 

"Good-bye,  Dirkovitch,  and  a  pleasant  journey,"  said  Little 
Mildred. 

"  Au  revoir,  my  true  friends,"  said  the  Russian. 

"Indeed!     But  we  thought  you  were  going  home?" 

"Yes;  but  I  will  come  again.  My  friends,  is  that  road  shut?" 
He  pointed  to  where  the  north  star  burned  over  the  Khyber  Pass. 

"  By  Jove !  I  forgot.  Of  course.  Happy  to  meet  you,  old  man, 
any  time  you  like.  Got  everything  you  want  —  cheroots,  ice, 
bedding?  That's  all  right.  Well,  au  revoir,  Dirkovitch." 

"Um,"  said  the  other  man,  as  the  tail-lights  of  the  train  grew 
small.  "  Of  —  all  —  the  —  unmitigated  — 

Little  Mildred  answered  nothing,  but  watched  the  north  star, 
and  hummed  a  selection  from  a  recent  burlesque  that  had  much 
delighted  the  White  Hussars.  It  ran :  — 

"I'm  sorry  for  Mr.  Bluebeard, 

I'm  sorry  to  cause  him  pain: 
But  a  terrible  spree  there's  sure  to  be 
When  he  comes  back  again." 

CHARACTER  AND   SETTING   IN  NARRATIVE 

This  discussion,  so  far,  has  been  confined  to  one  element  of  a 
story  —  plot.  Subtract  the  plot  from  a  story  and  two  other  ele- 
ments remain:  the  characters  who  performed  the  actions  of  this 
plot,  the  setting  or  scene  in  which  these  actions  took  place.  Both 
deserve  special  consideration,  for  both  present  special  problems 
of  their  own. 

How  to  get  good  characters  for  your  story  is  not  a  question  which 
can  be  answered  in  a  rhetorical  treatise.  You  must  study  life  and 
use  your  imagination.  How  to  put  them  in  a  story  when  you  have 
them,  is  a  question  to  be  answered,  so  far  as  answer  is  possible, 
and  answered  quickly  and  simply.  Make  them  act  and  make 
them  talk;  resort  to  explanation  as  .little  as  possible.  "By  their 
fruits  ye  shall  know  them"  applies  to  characters  in  fiction  as  well 
as  to  real  people.  We  judge  men  by  what  they  say  and  do,  and 
the  reader  will  comprehend  your  characters  by  dialogue  and  ac- 
tion far  more  quickly  than  by  labored  discussion.  It  is,  of  course, 
not  always  possible  to  develop  a  complicated  personality  without 


THE  STORY  347 

resort  to  sheer  exposition,  and  this  will  nearly  always  be  true  in 
the  elaborate  character  development  of  a  novel.  But  Stevenson 
succeeds  in  Markheim,  and  the  majority  of  good  short-story  writers 
are  to  be  grouped  with  him.  Circumstances  must  always  govern 
the  method  to  be  employed,  but  the  more  concrete,  the  more  effective 
is  a  rule  that  will  usually  hold.  In  the  story  which  follows,  Steven- 
son has  gone  so  far  as  to  personify  the  conscience  of  Markheim  in 
order  to  bring  out  in  a  dramatic  dialogue  certain  characteristics 
which,  otherwise,  would  have  to  be  explained. 

The  last  element  of  the  story,  setting,  has  already,  in  its  in- 
dependent form,  been  given  a  chapter.  Rhetorically  speaking,  it 
is  description  in  the  service  of  narrative,  and  it  includes  all  that 
is  necessary  to  give  real  place  and  time  to  the  story.  Its  position 
in  narrative  is  subordinate  but  very  important  nevertheless,  for 
only  by  adequate  description  can  fictitious  actions  be  given  a  back- 
ground of  apparent  reality.  The  description  included  in  your 
tale  will  be  expository  in  its  nature  if  an  accurate  account  of  the 
place  and  time  of  the  narrative  is  required.  It  will  be  highly 
suggestive  if  the  author  seeks  "atmosphere."  Mrs.  Veal  contains 
many  examples  of  the  former;  Markheim  is  enriched  by  some  of 
the  best  examples  in  the  language  of  the  latter.  In  either  case, 
the  setting,  to  be  good,  must  obey  the  laws  governing  description, 
which  are  discussed  elsewhere  in  this  book.  It  must  also,  how- 
ever, obey  another  law  imposed  upon  it  by  the  subordinate  position 
which,  even  in  highly  descriptive  narrative,  it  must  hold.  The 
setting  must  be  achieved  with  due  brevity;  it  must  not  clog  the 
narrative.  For  this  reason,  suggestive  description  is  usually  bet- 
ter suited  to  the  purposes  of  a  story-teller.  The  famous  picture 
of  the  knight  in  Scott's  Talisman  is  a  tour  de  force  of  expository 
.  description ;  it  is  questionable  whether  readers  of  that  novel  would 
not  have  preferred  a  briefer  even  if  thereby  a  less  accurate  account. 


CONCLUSION 

Story-writing,  like  every  other  kind  of  writing,  is  a  matter  of 
ideas  plus  straight  thinking  and  adequate  expression.  The  ideas 
in  this  case  will  come  from  a  sympathetic  understanding  of  human 


348  ENGLISH  COMPOSITION 

nature  and  an  imaginative  comprehension  of  the  springs  of  human 
action.  Straight  thinking  in  narrative  regards  those  problems  of 
plot  arrangement  which  we  have  discussed  under  Unity,  Coherence, 
and  Emphasis  and  all  that  involves  the  harmonious  development 
of  the  story.  Adequate  expression  requires  that  the  plot,  character, 
and  setting,  so  conceived,  and  so  planned,  should  be  put,  m  a 
fitting  manner,  into  adequate  words.  The  result  may  not  be  a 
good  story/ for  absolute  excellence  will  depend  upon  the  material 
which  the  writer  is  able  to  command.  But,  even  if  not  valuable 
as  literature,  when  properly  conducted,  the  experiment  will  be  in- 
valuable as  an  exercise  in  writing.  And  this  is  true  because  the 
constructing  of  a  story  requires  the  same  careful  thinking  that  must 
precede  a  piece  of  exposition,  but  the  thinking  is  expended  upon 
more  interesting  and  more  pliable  materials.  Let  the  writer  take, 
as  Stevenson  has  done  in  the  story  which  follows,  a  situation,  that 
is  a  relation  between  two  people,  or  a  man  and  his  environment,  a 
relation  that  is  interesting  and  full  of  potential  action.  Let  him 
get  a  plot,  the  simpler  the  better,  by  means  of  which  this  situation 
may  develop,  and  carefully  unify  it.  Let  him  arrange  for  the 
disposition  of  the  antecedent  action.  Let  him  invent  a  climax 
which  will  be  a  complete  revelation  of  the  situation,  and  direct  all 
expectancy  in  the  story  towards  that  climax.  Let  him  first  do 
all  this,  and  then  write  out  the  story.  He  will  certainly  fail  to 
equal  Stevenson  and  he  will  probably  fall  short  of  a  masterpiece. 
But  he  \\ill  learn  the  value  of  intellectual  labor  in  any  advanced 
form  of  composition. 

MARKHEIM 

ROBERT    LOUIS    STEVENSON 

"Yes,"  said  the  dealer,  "our  windfalls  are  of  various  kinds. 
Some  customers  are  ignorant,  and  then  I  touch  a  dividend  on  my 
superior  knowledge.  Some  are  dishonest,"  and  here  he  held  up 
the  candle,  so  that  the  light  fell  strongly  on  his  visitor,  "  and  in  that 
case,"  he  continued,  "  I  profit  by  my  virtue." 

Markheim  had  but  just  entered  from  the  daylight  streets,  and  his 
eyes  had  not  yet  grown  familiar  with  the  mingled  shine  and  dark- 


THE  STORY 


349 


ness  in  the  shop.  At  these  pointed  words,  and  before  the  near 
presence  of  the  flame,  he  blinked  painfully  and  looked  aside. 

The  dealer  chuckled.  "  You  come  to  me  on  Christmas  day," 
he  resumed,  "  when  you  know  that  I  am  alone  in  my  house,  put  up 
my  shutters,  and  make  a  point  of  refusing  business.  Well,  you  will 
have  to  pay  for  that ;  you  will  have  to  pay  for  my  loss  of  time,  when 
I  should  be  balancing  my  books;  you  will  have  to  pay,  besides, 
for  a  kind  of  manner  that  I  remark  in  you  to-day  very  strongly.  I 
am  the  essence  of  discretion,  and  ask  no  awkward  questions;  but 
when  a  customer  cannot  look  me  in  the  eye,  he  has  to  pay  for  it." 
The  dealer  once  more  chuckled;  and  then,  changing  to  his  usual 
business  voice,  though  still  with  a  note  of  irony,  "  You  can  give,  as 
usual,  a  clear  account  of  how  you  came  into  the  possession  of  the 
object?"  he  continued.  " Still  your  uncle's  cabinet ?  A  remark- 
able collector,  sir ! " 

And  the  little  pale,  round-shouldered  dealer  stood  almost  on  tip- 
toe, looking  over  the  top  of  his  gold  spectacles,  and  nodding  his 
head  with  every  mark  of  disbelief.  Markheim  returned  his  gaze 
with  one  of  infinite  pity,  and  a  touch  of  horror. 

"This  time,"  said  he,  "you  are  in  error.  I  have  not  come  to 
sell,  but  to  buy.  I  have  no  curios  to  dispose  of ;  my  uncle's  cabinet 
is  bare  to  the  wainscot ;  even  were  it  still  intact,  I  have  done  well  on 
the  Stock  Exchange,  and  should  more  likely  add  to  it  than  other- 
wise, and  my  errand  to-day  is  simplicity  itself.  I  seek  a  Christmas 
present  for  a  lady,"  he  continued,  waxing  more  fluent  as  he  struck 
into  the  speech  he  had  prepared;  "and  certainly  I  owe  you  every 
excuse  for  thus  disturbing  you  upon  so  small  a  matter.  But  the 
thing  was  neglected  yesterday;  I  must  produce  my  little  compli- 
ment at  dinner;  and,  as  you  very  well  know,  a  rich  marriage  is 
not  a  thing  to  be  neglected." 

There  followed  a  pause,  during  which  the  dealer  seemed  to  weigh 
this  statement  incredulously.  The  ticking  of  many  clocks  among 
the  curious  lumber  of  the  shop,  and  the  faint  rushing  of  the  cabs  in 
a  near  thoroughfare,  filled  up  the  interval  of  silence. 

"  Well,  sir,"  said  the  dealer,  "  be  it  so.  You  are  an  old  customer 
after  all ;  and  if,  as  you  say,  you  have  the  chance  of  a  good  marriage, 
far  be  it  from  me  to  be  an  obstacle.  Here  is  a  nice  thing  for  a  lady 
now,"  he  went  on,  "  this  hand-glass  —  fifteenth  century,  warranted ; 


35° 


ENGLISH   COMPOSITION 


comes  from  a  good  collection,  too;  but  I  reserve  the  name,  in 
the  interests  of  my  customer,  who  was  just  like  yourself,  my  dear 
sir,  the  nephew  and  sole  heir  of  a  remarkable  collector." 

The  dealer,  while  he  thus  ran  on  in  his  dry  and  biting  voice,  had 
stooped  to  take  the  object  from  its  place ;  and,  as  he  had  done  so,  a 
shock  had  passed  through  Markheim,astart  both  of  hand  and  foot, 
a  sudden  leap  of  many  tumultuous  passions  to  the  face.  It  passed 
as  swiftly  as  it  came,  and  left  no  trace  beyond  a  certain  trembling 
of  the  hand  that  now  received  the  glass. 

"A  glass,"  he  said  hoarsely,  and  then  paused,  and  repeated  it 
more  clearly.  "A  glass?  For  Christmas?  Surely  not!" 

"  And  why  not  ?  "  cried  the  dealer.     "  Why  not  a  glass  ?" 

Markheim  was  looking  upon  him  with  an  indefinable  expression. 
"  You  ask  me  why  not  ?  "  he  said.  "  Why,  look  here  —  look  in  it  — 
look  at  yourself !  Do  you  like  to  see  it  ?  No  !  nor  I  —  nor  any 
man." 

The  little  man  had  jumped  back  when  Markheim  had  so 
suddenly  confronted  him  with  the  mirror;  but  now,  perceiving 
there  was  nothing  worse  on  hand,  he  chuckled.  "  Your  future 
lady,  sir,  must  be  pretty  hard-favoured,"  said  he. 

"I  ask  you,"  said  Markheim,  "for  a  Christmas  present,  and 
you  give  me  this  —  this  damned  reminder  of  years,  and  sins  and 
follies  —  this  hand-conscience  !  Did  you  mean  it  ?  Had  you  a 
thought  in  your  mind?  Tell  me.  It  will  be  better  for  you  if 
you  do.  Come,  tell  me  about  yourself.  I  hazard  a  guess  now, 
that  you  are  in  secret  a  very  charitable  man?" 

The  dealer  looked  closely  at  his  companion.  It  was  very  odd, 
Markheim  did  not  appear  to  be  laughing;  there  was  something 
in  his  face  like  an  eager  sparkle  of  hope,  but  nothing  of  mirth. 

"  \Vhat  are  you  driving  at  ?  "  the  dealer  asked. 

"Not  charitable?"  returned  the  other,  gloomily.  "Not  chari- 
table; not  pious;  not  scrupulous;  unloving,  unbeloved;  a. hand 
to  get  money,  a  safe  to  keep  it.  It  that  all?  Dear  God,  man,  is 
that  all?" 

"I  will  tell  you'what  it  is,"  began  the  dealer,  with  some  sharp- 
ness, and  then  broke  off  again  into  a  chuckle.  "But  I  see  this 
is  a  love  match  of-  yours,  and  you  have  been  drinking  the  lady's 
health." 


THE  STORY  .,„ 

"Ah!"  cried  Markheim,  with  a  strange  curiosity.  "Ah,  have 
you  been  in  love  ?  Tell  me  about  that. " 

"  I ! "  cried  the  dealer.  "  I  in  love !  I  never  had  the  time,  nor  have 
I  the  time  to-day  for  all  this  nonsense.  Will  you  take  the  glass?" 

"Where  is  the  hurry?"  returned  Markheim.  "It  is  very 
pleasant  to  stand  here  talking;  and  life  is  so  short  and  insecure 
that  I  would  not  hurry  away  from  any  pleasure  —  no,  not  even 
from  so  mild  a  one  as  this.  We  should  rather  cling,  cling  to  what 
little  we  can  get,  like  a  man  at  a  cliff's  edge.  Every  second  is  a 
cliff,  if  you  think  upon  it  —  a  cliff  a  mile  high  —  high  enough,  if 
we  fall,  to  dash  us  out  of  every  feature  of  humanity.  Hence  it  is 
best  to  talk  pleasantly.  Let  us  talk  of  each  other;  why  should  we 
wear  this  mask?  Let  us  be  confidential.  Who  knows,  we  might 
become  friends?" 

"  I  have  just  one  word  to  say  to  you,"  said  the  dealer.  "  Either 
make  your  purchase,  or  walk  out  of  my  shop." 

"  True,  true,"  said  Markheim.  "  Enough  fooling.  To  business. 
Show  me  something  else." 

The  dealer  stooped  once  more,  this  time  to  replace  the  glass  upon 
the  shelf,  his  thin  blond  hair  falling  over  his  eyes  as  he  did  so. 
Markheim  moved  a  little  nearer,  with  one  hand  in  the  pocket  of  his 
greatcoat;  he  drew  himself  up  and  filled  his  lungs;  at  the  same 
time  many  different  emotions  were  depicted  together  on  his  face  — 
terror,  horror,  and  resolve,  fascination  and  a  physical  repulsion; 
and  through  a  haggard  lift  of  his  upper  lip,  his  teeth  looked  out. 

"  This,  perhaps,  may  suit, "  observed  the  dealer ;  and  then,  as 
he  began  to  realise,  Markheim  bounded  from  behind  upon  his 
victim.  The  long,  skewerlike  dagger  flashed  and  fell.  The  dealer 
struggled  like  a  hen,  striking  his  temple  on  the  shelf,  and  then 
tumbled  on  the  floor  in  a  heap. 

Time  had  some  score  of  small  voices  in  that  shop,  some  stately 
and  slow  as  was  becoming  to  their  great  age;  others  garrulous 
and  hurried.  All  these  told  out  the  seconds  in  an  intricate  chorus 
of  tickings.  Then  the  passage  of  a  lad's  feet,  heavily  running  on  the 
pavement,  broke  in  upon  these  smaller  voices  and  startled  Mark- 
heim into  the  consciousness  of  his  surroundings.  He  looked  about 
him  awfully.  The  candle  stood  on  the  counter,  its  flame  solemnly 
wagging  in  a  draught;  and  by  that  inconsiderable  movement, 


352 


ENGLISH   COMPOSITION 


the  whole  room  was  filled  with  noiseless  bustle  and  kept  heaving 
like  a  sea :  the  tall  shadows  nodding,  the  gross  blots  of  darkness 
swelling  and  dwindling  as  with  respiration,  the  faces  of  the  portraits 
and  the  china  gods  changing  and  wavering  like  images  in  water. 
The  inner  door  stood  ajar,  and  peered  into  that  leaguer  of  shadows 
with  a  long  slit  of  daylight  like  a  pointing  finger. 

From  these  fear-stricken  rovings,  Markheim's  eyes  returned  to 
the  body  of  his  victim,  where  it  lay  both  humped  and  sprawling, 
incredibly  small  and  strangely  meaner  than  in  life.  In  these  poor, 
miserly  clothes,  in  that  ungainly  attitude,  the  dealer  lay  like  so 
much  sawdust.  Markheim  had  feared  to  see  it,  and,  lo !  it  was 
nothing.  And  yet,  as  he  gazed,  this  bundle  of  old  clothes  and  pool 
of  blood  began  to  find  eloquent  voices.  There  it  must  lie;  there 
was  none  to  work  the  cunning  hinges  or  direct  the  miracle  of  loco- 
motion —  there  it  must  lie  till  it  was  found.  Found !  ay,  and  then  ? 
Then  would  this  dead  flesh  lift  up  a  cry  that  would  ring  over  Eng- 
land, and  fill  the  world  with  echoes  of  pursuit.  Ay,  dead  or  not, 
this  was  still  the  enemy.  "  Time  was  that  when  the  brains  were  out," 
he  thought;  and  the  first  word  struck  into  his  mind.  Time,  now 
that  the  deed  was  accomplished  —  time,  which  had  closed  for  the 
victim,  had  become  instant  and  momentous  for  the  slayer. 

The  thought  was  yet  in  his  mind,  when,  first  one  and  then  another, 
with  every  variety  of  pace  and  voice  —  one  deep  as  the  bell  from  a 
cathedral  turret,  another  ringing  on  its  treble  notes  the  prelude  of  a 
waltz  —  the  clocks  began  to  strike  the  hour  of  three  in  the  afternoon. 

The  sudden  outbreak  of  so  many  tongues  in  that  dumb  chamber 
staggered  him.  He  began  to  bestir  himself,  going  to  and  fro  with 
the  candle,  beleaguered  by  moving  shadows,  and  startled  to  the  soul 
by  chance  reflections.  In  many  rich  mirrors,  some  of  home  designs, 
some  from  Venice  or  Amsterdam,  he  saw  his  face  repeated  and 
repeated,  as  it  were  an  army  of  spies ;  his  own  eyes  met  and  detected 
him;  and  the  sound  of  his  own  steps,  lightly  as  they  fell,  vexed  the 
surrounding  quiet.  And  still  as  he  continued  to  fill  his  pockets, 
his  mind  accused  him,  with  a  sickening  iteration,  of  the  thousand 
faults  of  his  design.  He  should  have  chosen  a  more  quiet  hour; 
he  should  have  prepared  an  alibi ;  he  should  not  have  used  a  knife ; 
he  should  have  been  more  cautious,  and  only  bound  and  gagged 
the  dealer  and  not  killed  him ;  he  should  have  been  more  bold,  and 


THE  STORY 


353 


killed  the  servant  also;  he  should  have  done  all  things  otherwise; 
poignant  regrets,  weary,  incessant  toiling  of  the  mind  to  change 
what  was  unchangeable,  to  plan  what  was  now  useless,  to  be  the 
architect  of  the  irrevocable  past.  Meanwhile,  and  behind  all  this 
activity,  brute  terrors,  like  the  scurrying  of  rats  in  a  deserted  attic, 
filled  the  more  remote  chambers  of  his  brain  with  riot ;  the  hand  of 
the  constable  would  fall  heavy  on  his  shoulder,  and  his  nerves 
would  jerk  like  a  hooked  fish ;  or  he  beheld,  in  galloping  defile, 
the  dock,  the  prison,  the  gallows,  and  the  black  coffin. 

Terror  of  the  people  in  the  street  sat  down  before  his  mind  like 
a  besieging  army.  It  was  impossible,  he  thought,  but  that  some 
rumour  of  the  struggle  must  have  reached  their  ears  and  set  on 
edge  their  curiosity;  and  now,  in  all  the  neighbouring  houses,  he 
divined  them  sitting  motionless  and  with  uplifted  ear  —  solitary 
people,  condemned  to  spend  Christmas  dwelling  alone  on  memories 
of  the  past,  and  now  startlingly  recalled  from  that  tender  exercise; 
happy  family  parties,  struck  into  silence  round  the  table,  the  mother 
still  with  raised  finger:  every  degree  and  age  and  humour,  but  all, 
by  their  own  hearths,  prying  and  hearkening  and  weaving  the 
rope  that  was  to  hang  him.  Sometimes  it  seemed  to  him  he  could 
not  move  too  softly ;  the  clink  of  the  tall  Bohemian  goblets  rang  out 
loudly  like  a  bell ;  and  alarmed  by  the  bigness  of  the  ticking,  he  was 
tempted  to  stop  the  clocks.  And  then,  again,  with  a  swift  transi- 
tion of  his  terrors,  the  very  silence  of  the  place  appeared  a  source  of 
peril,  and  a  thing  to  strike  and  freeze  the  passer-by ;  and  he  would 
step  more  boldly,  and  bustle  aloud  among  the  contents  of  the  shop, 
and  imitate,  with  elaborate  bravado,  the  movements  of  a  busy  man 
at  ease  in  his  own  house. 

But  he  was  now  so  pulled  about  by  different  alarms  that,  while 
one  portion  of  his  mind  was  still  alert  and  cunning,  another  trembled 
on  the  brink  of  lunacy.  One  hallucination  in  particular  took  a 
strong  hold  on  his  credulity.  The  neighbour  hearkening  with 
white  face  beside  his  window,  the  passer-by  arrested  by  a  horrible 
surmise  on  the  pavement  -  these  could  at  worst  suspect,  they 
could  not  know;  through  the  brick  walls  and  shuttered  windows 
only  sounds  could  penetrate.  But  here,  within  the  house,  was 
he  alone  ?  He  knew  he  was ;  he  had  watched  the  servant  set  forth 
sweethearting,  in  her  poor  best,  "out  for  the  day"  written  in  every 


354 


ENGLISH  COMPOSITION 


ribbon  and  smile.  Yes,  he  was  alone,  of  course;  and  yet,  in  the 
bulk  of  empty  house  about  him,  he  could  surely  hear  a  stir  of 
delicate  footing  —  he  was  surely  conscious,  inexplicably  conscious  of 
some  presence.  Ay,  surely ;  to  every  room  and  corner  of  the  house 
his  imagination  followed  it ;  and  now  it  was  a  faceless  thing,  and 
yet  had  eyes  to  see  with ;  and  again  it  was  a  shadow  of  himself ; 
and  yet  again  behold  the  image  of  the  dead  dealer,  reinspired  with 
cunning  and  hatred. 

At  times,  with  a  strong  effort,  he  would  glance  at  the  open  door, 
which  still  seemed  to  repel  his  eyes.  The  house  was  tall,  the  sky- 
light small  and  dirty,  the  day  blind  with  fog;  and  the  light  that 
filtered  down  to  the  ground  storey  was  exceedingly  faint,  and  showed 
dimly  on  the  threshold  of  the  shop.  And  yet,  in  that  strip  of  doubt- 
ful brightness,  did  there  not  hang  wavering  a  shadow? 

Suddenly,  from  the  street  outside,  a  very  jovial  gentle- 
man began  to  beat  with  a  staff  on  the  shop-door,  accompany- 
ing his  blows  with  shouts  and  railleries  in  which  the  dealer  was 
continually  called  upon  by  name.  Markheim,  smitten  into  ice, 
glanced  at  the  dead  man.  But  no!  he  lay  quite  still;  he  was 
fled  away  far  beyond  ear-shot  of  these  blows  and  shoutings; 
he  was  sunk  beneath  seas  of  silence ;  and  his  name,  which  would 
once  have  caught  his  notice  above  the  howling  of  a  storm,  had 
become  an  empty  sound.  And  presently  the  jovial  gentleman 
desisted  from  his  knocking  and  departed. 

Here  was  a  broad  hint  to  hurry  what  remained  to  be  done,  to  get 
forth  from  this  accusing  neighbourhood,  to  plunge  into  a  bath  of 
London  multitudes,  and  to  reach,  on  the  other  side  of  day,  that 
haven  of  safety  and  apparent  innocence  —  his  bed.  One  visitor 
had  come:  at  any  moment  another  might  follow  and  be  more 
obstinate.  To  have  done  the  deed,  and  yet  not  to  reap  the  profit, 
would  be  too  abhorrent  a  failure.  The  money,  that  was  now  Mark- 
heim's  concern ;  and  as  a  means  to  that,  the  keys. 

He  glanced  over  his  shoulder  at  the  open  door,  where  the  shadow 
was  still  lingering  and  shivering;  and  with  no  conscious  repug- 
nance of  the  mind,  yet  with  a  tremor  of  the  belly,  he  drew  near  the 
body  of  his  victim.  The  human  character  had  quite  departed. 
Like  a  suit  half-stuffed  with  bran,  the  limbs  lay  scattered,  the  trunk 
doubled,  on  the  floor;  and  yet  the  thing  repelled  him.  Although 


THE  STORY 


355 


so  dingy  and  inconsiderable  to  the  eye,  he  feared  it  might  have  more 
significance  to  the  touch.  He  took  the  body  by  the  shoulders, 
and  turned  it  on  its  back.  It  was  strangely  light  and  supple,  and 
the  limbs,  as  if  they  had  been  broken,  fell  into  the  oddest  postures. 
The  face  was  robbed  of  all  expression ;  but  it  was  as  pale  as  wax,  and 
shockingly  smeared  with  blood  about  one  temple.  That  was,  for 
Markheim,  the  one  displeasing  circumstance.  It  carried  him  back, 
upon  the  instant,  to  a  certain  fair  day  in  a  fishers' village:  a  gray 
day,  a  piping  wind,  a  crowd  upon  the  street,  the  blare  of  brasses, 
the  booming  of  drums,  the  nasal  voice  of  a  ballad-singer ;  and  a 
boy  going  to  and  fro,  buried  over  head  in  the  crowd  and  divided 
between  interest  and  fear,  until,  coming  out  upon  the  chief  place 
of  concourse,  he  beheld  a  booth  and  a  great  screen  with  pictures, 
dismally  designed,  garishly  coloured:  Brownrigg  with  her  ap- 
prentice; the  Mannings  with  their  murdered  guest;  Weare 
in  the  death-grip  of  Thurtell;  and  a  score  besides  of  famous 
crimes.  The  thing  was  as  clear  as  an  illusion ;  he  was  once  again 
that  little  boy ;  he  was  looking  once  again,  and  with  the  same  sense 
of  physical  revolt,  at  these  vile  pictures ;  he  was  still  stunned  by 
the  thumping  of  the  drums.  A  bar  of  that  day's  music  returned 
upon  his  memory ;  and  at  that,  for  the  first  time,  a  qualm  came  over 
him,  a  breath  of  nausea,  a  sudden  weakness  of  the  joints,  which  he 
must  instantly  resist  and  conquer. 

He  judged  it  more  prudent  to  confront  than  to  flee  from  these  con- 
siderations ;  looking  the  more  hardily  in  the  dead  face,  bending  his 
mind  to  realize  the  nature  and  greatness  of  his  crime.  So  little  a 
while  ago  that  face  had  moved  with  every  change  of  sentiment,  that 
pale  mouth  had  spoken,  that  body  had  been  all  on  fire  with  govern- 
able energies ;  and  now,  and  by  his  act,  that  piece  of  life  had  been 
arrested,  as  the  horologist,  with  interjected  finger,  arrests  the  beat- 
ing of  the  clock.  So  he  reasoned  in  vain ;  he  could  rise  to  no  more 
remorseful  consciousness;  the  same  heart  which  had  shuddered 
before  the  painted  effigies  of  crime,  looked  on  its  reality  unmoved. 
At  best,  he  felt  a  gleam  of  pity  for  one  who  had  been  endowed  in 
vain  with  all  those  faculties  that  can  make  the  world  a  garden  of 
enchantment,  one  who  had  never  lived  and  who  was  now  dead. 
But  of  penitence,  no,  not  a  tremor. 

With  that,  shaking  himself  clear  of  these  considerations,  he  found 


356  ENGLISH   COMPOSITION 

the  keys  and  advanced  towards  the  open  door  of  the  shop.  Outside, 
it  had  begun  to  rain  smartly ;  and  the  sound  of  the  shower  upon  the 
roof  had  banished  silence.  Like  some  dripping  cavern,  the  cham- 
bers of  the  house  were  haunted  by  an  incessant  echoing,  which 
filled  the  ear  and  mingled  with  the  ticking  of  the  clocks.  And,  as 
Markheim  approached  the  door,  he  seemed  to  hear,  in  answer  to  his 
own  cautious  tread,  the  steps  of  another  foot  withdrawing  up  the 
stair.  The  shadow  still  palpitated  loosely  on  the  threshold.  He 
threw  a  ton's  weight  of  resolve  upon  his  muscles,  and  drew  back 
the  door. 

The  faint,  foggy  daylight  glimmered  dimly  on  the  bare  floor 
and  stairs ;  on  the  bright  suit  of  armour  posted,  halbert  in  hand, 
upon  the  landing;  and  on  the  dark  wood-carvings,  and  framed 
pictures  that  hung  against  the  yellow  panels  of  the  wainscot.  So 
loud  was  the  beating  of  the  rain  through  all  the  house  that,  in 
Markheim's  ears,  it  began  to  be  distinguished  into  many  different 
sounds.  Footsteps  and  sighs,  the  tread  of  regiments  marching 
in  the  distance,  the  chink  of  money  in  the  counting,  and  the  creak- 
ing of  doors  held  stealthily  ajar,  appeared  to  mingle  with  the  patter 
of  the  drops  upon  the  cupola  and  the  gushing  of  the  water  in  the 
pipes.  The  sense  that  he  was  not  alone  grew  upon  him  to  the  verge 
of  madness.  On  every  side  he  was  haunted  and  begirt  by  presences. 
He  heard  them  moving  in  the  upper  chambers;  from  the  shop, 
he  heard  the  dead  man  getting  to  his  legs ;  and  as  he  began  with  a 
great  effort  to  mount  the  stairs,  feet  fled  quietly  before  him  and 
followed  stealthily  behind.  If  he  were  but  deaf,  he  thought,  how 
tranquilly  he  would  possess  his  soul !  And  then  again,  and  heark- 
ening with  ever  fresh  attention,  he  blessed  himself  for  that  unrest- 
ing sense  which  held  the  outposts  and  stood  a  trusty  sentinel  upon 
his  life.  His  head  turned  continually  on  his  neck ;  his  eyes,  which 
seemed  starting  from  their  orbits,  scouted  on  every  side,  and  on 
every  side  were  half-rewarded  as  with  the  tail  of  something  name- 
less vanishing.  The  four-and-twenty  steps  to  the  first  floor  were 
four-and-twenry  agonies. 

On  that  first  storey,  the  doors  stood  ajar,  three  of  them  like  three 
ambushes,  shaking  his  nerves  like  the  throats  of  cannon.  He 
could  never  again,  he  felt,  be  sufficiently  immured  and  fortified 
from  men's  observing  eyes ;  he  longed  to  be  home,  girt  in  by  walls, 


THE  STORY 


357 


buried  among  bedclothes,  and  invisible  to  all  but  God.  And  at  that 
thought  he  wondered  a  little,  recollecting  tales  of  other  murderers 
and  the  fear  they  were  said  to  entertain  of  heavenly  avengers.  It 
was  not  so,  at  least,  with  him.  He  feared  the  laws  of  nature,  lest, 
in  their  callous  and  immutable  procedure,  they  should  preserve 
some  damning  evidence  of  his  crime.  He  feared  tenfold  more, 
with  a  slavish,  superstitious  terror,  some  scission  in  the  continuity 
of  man's  experience,  some  wilful  illegality  of  nature.  He  played 
a  game  of  skill,  depending  on  the  rules,  calculating  consequence 
from  cause;  and  what  if  nature,  as  the  defeated  tyrant 
overthrew  the  chess-board,  should  break  the  mould  of  their  suc- 
cession ?  The  like  had  befallen  Napoleon  (so  writers  said)  when 
the  winter  changed  the  time  of  its  appearance.  The  like  might  be- 
fall Markheim :  the  solid  walls  might  become  transparent  and  reveal 
his  doings  like  those  of  bees  in  a  glass  hive ;  the  stout  planks  might 
yield  under  his  foot  like  quicksands  and  detain  him  in  their  clutch ; 
ay,  and  there  were  soberer  accidents  that  might  destroy  him :  if,  for 
instance,  the  house  should  fall  and  imprison  him  beside  the  body 
of  his  victim ;  or  the  house  next  door  should  fly  on  fire,  and  the  fire- 
men invade  him  from  all  sides.  These  things  he  feared ;  and,  in 
a  sense,  these  things  might  be  called  the  hands  of  God  reached  forth 
against  sin.  But  about  God, himself  he  was  at  ease;  his  act  was 
doubtless  exceptional,  but  so  were  his  excuses,  which  God  knew ; 
it  was  there,  and  not  among  men,  that  he  felt  sure  of  justice. 
When  he  had  got  safe  into  the  drawing-room,  and  shut  the  door 
behind  him,  he  was  aware  of  a  respite  from  alarms.  The  room 
was  quite  dismantled,  uncarpeted  besides,  and  strewn  with  pack- 
ing-cases and  incongruous  furniture;  several  great  pier-glasses, 
in  which  he  beheld  himself  at  various  angles,  like  an  actor  on  a 
stage;  many  pictures,  framed  and  unframed,  standing  with  their 
faces  to  the  wall ;  a  fine  Sheraton  sideboard,  a  cabinet  of  marquetry, 
and  a  great  old  bed,  with  tapestry  hangings.  The  windows 
opened  to  the  floor;  but  by  great  good  fortune  the  lower  part  c 
the  shutters  had  been  closed,  and  this  concealed  him  from  the 
neighbours.  Here,  then,  Markheim  drew  in  a  packing-case  befoi 
the  cabinet,  and  began  to  search  among  the  keys.  It  was  a  long 
business,  for  there  were  many;  and  it  was  irksome,  besides;  for, 
after  all  there  might  be  nothing  in  the  cabinet,  and  time  was  on  th 


35&  EXCLISH   COMPOSITION 

wing.  But  the  closeness  of  the  occupation  sobered  him.  With 
the  tail  of  his  eye  he  saw  the  door  —  even  glanced  at  it  from  time 
to  time  directly,  like  a  besieged  commander  pleased  to  verify  the 
good  estate  of  his  defences.  But  in  truth  he  was  at  peace.  The 
rain  falling  in  the  street  sounded  natural  and  pleasant.  Presently, 
on  the  other  side,  the  notes  of  a  piano  were  wakened  to  the  music 
of  a  hymn,  and  the  voices  of  many  children  took  up  the  air  and 
words.  How  stately,  how  comfortable  was  the  melody!  How 
fresh  the  youthful  voices !  Markheim  gave  ear  to  it  smilingly,  as 
he  sorted  out  the  keys ;  and  his  mind  was  thronged  with  answerable 
ideas  and  images;  church-going  children  and  the  pealing  of  the 
high  organ;  children  afield,  bathers  by  the  brookside,  ramblers  on 
the  brambly  common,  kite-flyers  in  the  windy  and  cloud-navigated 
sky;  and  then,  at  another  cadence  of  the  hymn,  back  again  to 
church,  and  the  somnolence  of  summer  Sundays,  and  the  high 
genteel  voice  of  the  parson  (which  he  smiled  a  little  to  recall)  and 
the  painted  Jacobean  tombs,  and  the  dim  lettering  of  the  Ten 
Commandments  in  the  chancel. 

And  as  he  sat  thus,  at  once  busy  and  absent,  he  was  startled  to 
his  feet.  A  flash  of  ice,  a  flash  of  fire,  a  bursting  gush  of  blood, 
went  over  him,  and  then  he  stood  transfixed  and  thrilling.  A  step 
mounted  the  stair  slowly  and  steadily,  and  presently  a  hand  was 
laid  upon  the  knob,  and  the  lock  clicked,  and  the  door  opened. 

Fear  held  Markheim  in  a  vice.  What  to  expect  he  knew  not, 
whether  the  dead  man  walking,  or  the  official  ministers  of  human 
justice,  or  some  chance  witness  blindly  stumbling  in  to  consign  him 
to  the  gallows.  But  when  a  face  was  thrust  into  the  aperture, 
glanced  round  the  room,  looked  at  him,  nodded  and  smiled  as  if 
in  friendly  recognition,  and  then  withdrew  again,  and  the  door 
closed  behind  it,  his  fear  broke  loose  from  his  control  in  a  hoarse 
cry.  At  the  sound  of  this  the  visitant  returned. 

"  Did  you  call  me  ?  "  he  asked  pleasantly,  and  with  that  he  entered 
the  room  and  closed  the  door  behind  him. 

Markheim  stood  and  gazed  at  him  with  all  his  eyes.  Perhaps 
there  was  a  film  upon  his  sight,  but  the  outlines  of  the  newcomer 
seemed  to  change  and  waver  like  those  of  the  idols  in  the  waver- 
ing candle-light  of  the  shop;  and  at  times  he  thought  he  knew 
him ;  and  at  times  he  thought  he  bore  a  likeness  to  himself ;  and 


THE  STORY 


359 


always,  like  a  lump  of  living  terror,  there  lay  in  his  bosom  the  con- 
viction that  this  thing  was  not  of  the  earth  and  not  of  God. 

And  yet  the  creature  had  a  strange  air  of  the  commonplace,  as 
he  stood  looking  on  Markheim  with  a  smile ;  and  when  he  added : 
"  You  are  looking  for  the  money,  I  believe?"  it  was  in  the  tones  of 
every -day  politeness. 

Markheim  made  no  answer. 

"I  should  warn  you,"  resumed  the  other,  "that  the  maid  has 
left  her  sweetheart  earlier  than  usual  and  will  soon  be  here.  If 
Mr.  Markheim  be  found  in  this  house,  I  need  not  describe  to  him 
the  consequences." 

"  You  know  me  ?  "  cried  the  murderer. 

The  visitor  smiled.  "  You  have  long  been  a  favourite  of  mine," 
he  said;  "and  I  have  long  observed  and  often  sought  to  help 
you." 

"  What  are  you  ?  "  cried  Markheim ;  "  the  devil  ?  " 

"  What  I  may  be,"  returned  the  other,  "cannot  affect  the  service 
I  propose  to  render  you." 

"It  can,"  cried  Markheim;  "it  does!  Be  helped  by  you? 
No,  never;  not  by  you!  You  do  not  know  me  yet;  thank  God, 
you  do  not  know  me !  " 

"I  know  you,"  replied  the  visitant,  with  a  sort  of  kind  severity 
or  rather  firmness.  "  I  know  you  to  the  soul." 

"Know  me!"  cried  Markheim.  "Who  can  do  so?  My  life 
is  but  a  travesty  and  slander  on  myself.  I  have  tried  to  belie  my 
nature.  All  men  do ;  all  men  are  better  than  this  disguise  that 
grows  about  and  stifles  them.  You  see  each  dragged  away  by 
life,  like  one  whom  bravos  have  seized  and  muffled  in  a  cloak.  If 
they  had  their  own  control  — if  you  could  see  their  faces,  they 
would  be  altogether  different,  they  would  shine  out  for  heroes  and 
saints!  I  am  worse  than  most;  myself  is  more  overlaid;  my 
excuse  is  known  to  me  and  God.  But,  had  I  the  time,  I  could 
disclose  myself." 

"To  me? "inquired  the  visitant. 

"To  you  before  all,"  returned  the  murderer.  "I  supposed  you 
were  intelligent.  I  thought  —  since  you  exist  —  you  would  prove  a 
reader  of  the  heart.  And  yet  you  would  propose  to  judge  me  by  my 
acts  !  Think  of  it ;  my  acts  !  I  was  born  and  I  have  lived  in  a  land 


360  ENGLISH  COMPOSITION 

of  giants ;  giants  have  dragged  me  by  the  wrists  since  I  was  born  out 
of  my  mother  —  the  giants  of  circumstance.  And  would  judge  me 
by  my  acts !  But  can  you  not  look  within?  Can  you  not  under- 
stand that  evil  is  hateful  to  me  ?  Can  you  not  see  within  me  the 
clear  writing  of  conscience,  never  blurred  by  any  wilful  sophistry, 
although  too  often  disregarded  ?  Can  you  not  read  me  for  a  thing 
that  surely  must  be  common  as  humanity  —  the  unwilling  sinner?  " 

"All  this  is  very  feelingly  expressed,"  was  the  reply,  "but  it 
regards  me  not.  These  points  of  consistency  are  beyond  my 
province,  and  I  care  not  in  the  least  by  what  compulsion  you  may 
have  been  dragged  away,  so  as  you  are  but  carried  in  the  right 
direction.  But  time  flies ;  the  servant  delays,  looking  in  the  faces  of 
the  crowd  and  at  the  pictures  on  the  hoardings,  but  still  she  keeps 
moving  nearer;  and  remember,  it  is  as  if  the  gallows  itself  were 
striding  towards  you  through  the  Christmas  streets !  Shall  I  help 
you ;  I,  who  know  all  ?  Shall  I  tell  you  where  to  find  the  money  ?  " 

"For  what  price?"  asked  Markheim. 

"I  offer  you  the  service  for  a  Christmas  gift,"  returned  the  other. 

Markheim  could  not  refrain  from  smiling  with  a  kind  of  bitter 
triumph.  "No,"  said  he,  "I  will  take  nothing  at  your  hands; 
if  I  were  dying  of  thirst,  and  it  was  your  hand  that  put  the  pitcher 
to  my  lips,  I  should  find  the  courage  to  refuse.  It  may  be  credu- 
lous, but  I  will  do  nothing  to  commit  myself  to  evil." 

"I  have  no  objection  to  a  death-bed  repentance,"  observed  the 
visitant. 

"Because  you  disbelieve  their  efficacy!"   Markheim  cried. 

"I  do  not  say  so,"  returned  the  other;  "but  I  look  on  these 
things  from  a  different  side,  and  when  the  life  is  done,  my  interest 
falls.  The  man  has  lived  to  serve  me,  to  spread  black  looks  under 
colour  of  religion,  or  to  sow  tares  in  the  wheat-field,  as  you  do,  in 
a  course  of  weak  compliance  with  desire.  Now  that  he  draws  so 
near  to  his  deliverance,  he  can  add  but  one  act  of  service  —  to 
repent,  to  die  smiling,  and  thus  to  build  up  in  confidence  and  hope 
the  more  timorous  of  my  surviving  followers.  I  am  not  so  hard 
a  master.  Try  me.  Accept  my  help.  Please  yourself  in  life 
as  you  have  done  hitherto;  please  yourself  more  amply,  spread 
your  elbows  at  the  board;  and  when  the  night  begins  to  fall 
and  the  curtains  to  be  drawn,  I  tell  you,  for  your  greater  com- 


THE  STORY  36l 

fort,  that  you  will  find  it  even  easy  to  compound  your  quarrel 
with  your  conscience,  and  to  make  a  truckling  peace  with  God. 
I  came  but  now  from  such  a  death-bed,  and  the  room  was  full  of 
sincere  mourners,  listening  to  the  man's  last  words :  and  when  I 
looked  into  that  face,  which  had  been  set  as  a  flint  against  mercy,  I 
found  it  smiling  with  hope." 

"  And  do  you,  then,  suppose  me  such  a  creature  ?  "  asked  Mark- 
heim.  "Do  you  think  I  have  no  more  generous  aspirations  than 
to  sin,  and  sin,  and  sin,  and,  at  last,  sneak  into  heaven?  My 
heart  rises  at  the  thought.  Is  this,  then,  your  experience  of  man- 
kind? or  is  it  because  you  find  me  with  red  hands  that  you 
presume  such  baseness  ?  and  is  this  crime  of  murder  indeed  so 
impious  as  to  dry  up  the  very  springs  of  good?" 

"Murder  is  to  me  no  special  category,"  replied  the  other. 
"  All  sins  are  murder,  even  as  all  life  is  war.  I  behold  your  race, 
like  starving  mariners  on  a  raft,  plucking  crusts  out  of  the  hands 
of  famine  and  feeding  on  each  other's  lives.  I  follow  sins  beyond 
the  moment  of  their  acting;  I  find  in  all  that  the  last  consequence 
is  death ;  and  to  my  eyes,  the  pretty  maid  who  thwarts  her  mother 
with  such  taking  graces  on  a  question  of  a  ball,  drips  no  less  visibly 
with  human  gore  than  such  a  murderer  as  yourself.  Do  I  say  that  I 
follow  sins  ?  I  follow  virtues  also ;  they  differ  not  by  the  thickness 
of  a  nail,  they  are  both  scythes  for  the  reaping  angel  of  Death. 
Evil,  for  which  I  live,  consists  not  in  action  but  in  character.  The 
bad  man  is  dear  to  me ;  not  the  bad  act,  whose  fruits,  if  we  could 
follow  them  far  enough  down  the  hurtling  cataract  of  the  ages, 
might  yet  be  found  more  blessed  than  those  of  the  rarest  virtues. 
And  it  is  not  because  you  have  killed  a  dealer,  but  because  you 
are  Markheim,  that  I  offered  to  forward  your  escape." 

"I  will  lay  my  heart  open  to  you,"  answered  Markheim. 
"  This  crime  on  which  you  find  me  is  my  last.  On  my  way  to  it  I 
have  learned  many  lessons;  itself  is  a  lesson,  a  momentous  lesson. 
Hitherto  I  have  been  driven  with  revolt  to  what  I  would  not;  I 
was  a  bond-slave  to  poverty,  driven  and  scourged.  There  are 
robust  virtues  that  can  stand  in  these  temptations ;  mine  was  not 
so :  I  had  a  thirst  of  pleasure.  But  to-day,  and  out  of  this  deed,  I 
pluck  both  warning  and  riches  — both  the  power  and  a  fresh 
resolve  to  be  myself.  I  become  in  all  things  a  free  actor  in  the 


362  EXULISH   COMPOSITION 

world ;  I  begin  to  see  myself  all  changed,  these  hands  the  agents  of 
good,  this  heart  at  peace.  Something  comes  over  me  out  of  the 
past;  something  of  what  I  have  dreamed  on  Sabbath  evenings  to 
the  sound  of  the  church  organ,  of  what  I  forecast  when  I  shed  tears 
over  noble  books,  or  talked,  an  innocent  child,  with  my  mother. 
There  lies  my  life ;  I  have  wandered  a  few  years,  but  now  I  see  once 
more  my  city  of  destination." 

"  You  are  to  use  this  money  on  the  Stock  Exchange,  I  think?" 
remarked  the  visitor;  "and  there,  if  I  mistake  not,  you  have 
already  lost  some  thousands?" 

"Ah,"  said  Markheim,  "but  this  time  I  have  a  sure   thing." 

"  This  time,  again,  you  will  lose,"  replied  the  visitor  quietly. 

"Ah,  but  I  keep  back  the  half !"  cried  Markheim. 

"  That  also  you  will  lose,"  said  the  other. 

The  sweat  started  upon  Markheim's  brow.  "Well,  then,  what 
matter?"  he  exclaimed.  "Say  it  be  lost,  say  I  am  plunged  again 
in  poverty,  shall  one  part  of  me,  and  that  the  worse,  continue  until 
the  end  to  override  the  better?  Evil  and  good  run  strong  in  me, 
haling  me  both  ways.  I  do  not  love  the  one  thing,  I  love  all.  I 
can  conceive  great  deeds,  renunciations,  martyrdoms ;  and  though 
I  be  fallen  to  such  a  crime  as  murder,  pity  is  no  stranger  to  my 
thoughts.  I  pity  the  poor;  who  knows  their  trials  better  than  my- 
self? I  pity  and  help  them;  I  prize  love,  I  love  honest  laughter; 
there  is  no  good  thing  nor  true  thing  on  earth  but  I  love  it  from  my 
heart.  And  are  my  vices  only  to  direct  my  life,  and  my  virtues  to 
lie  without  effect,  like  some  passive  lumber  of  the  mind  ?  Not  so ; 
good,  also,  is  a  spring  of  acts." 

But  the  visitant  raised  his  finger.  "For  six-and-thirty  years 
that  you  have  been  in  this  world,"  said  he,  "  through  many  changes 
of  fortune  and  varieties  of  humour,  I  have  watched  you  steadily 
fall.  Fifteen  years  ago  you  would  have  started  at  a  theft.  Three 
years  back  you  would  have  blenched  at  the  name  of  murder.  Is 
there  any  crime,  is  there  any  cruelty  or  meanness,  from  which  you 
still  recoil  ?  —  five  years  from  now  I  shall  detect  you  in  the  fact ! 
Downward,  downward,  lies  your  way;  nor  can  anything  but  death 
avail  to  stop  you." 

"It  is  true,"  Markheim  said  huskily,  "I  have  in  some  degree 
complied  with  evil.  But  it  is  so  with  all;  the  very  saints,  in  the 


THE  STORY 


363 


mere  exercise  of  living,  grow  less  dainty,  and  take  on  the  tone  of 
their  surroundings." 

"I  will  propound  to  you  one  simple  question,"  said  the  other; 
"and  as  you  answer,  I  shall  read  to  you  your  moral  horoscope. 
You  have  grown  in  many  things  more  lax;  possibly  you  do  right  to 
be  so ;  and  at  any  account,  it  is  the  same  with  all  men.  But  grant- 
ing that,  are  you  in  any  one  particular,  however  trifling,  more 
difficult  to  please  with  your  own  conduct,  or  do  you  go  in  all  things 
with  a  looser  rein?" 

"In  any  one?"  repeated  Markheim,  with  an  anguish  of  con- 
sideration. "'No,"  he  added,  with  despair,  "in  none!  .1  have 
gone  down  in  all." 

"Then,"  said  the  visitor,  "  content  yourself  with  what  you  are, 
for  you  will  never  change ;  and  the  words  of  your  part  on  this  stage 
are  irrevocably  written  down." 

Markheim  stood  for  a  long  while  silent,  and  indeed  it  was  the 
visitor  who  first  broke  the  silence.  "That  being  so,"  he  said, 
"  shall  I  show  you  the  money?" 

"And  grace?"  cried  Markheim. 

"Have  you  not  tried  it?"  returned  the  other.  "Two  or  three 
years  ago,  did  I  not  see  you  on  the  platform  of  revival  meetings,  and 
was  not  your  voice  the  loudest  in  the  hymn?" 

"It  is  true,"  said  Markheim;  "and  I  see  clearly  what  remains 
for  me  by  way  of  duty.  I  thank  you  for  these  lessons  from  my 
soul;  my  eyes  are  opened,  and  I  behold  myself  at  last  for  what 
I  am." 

At  this  moment,  the  sharp  note  of  the  door-bell  rang  through  the 
house;  and  the  visitant,  as  though  this  were  some  concerted  signal 
for  which  he  had  been  waiting,  changed  at  once  his  demeanour. 

"  The  maid ! "  he  cried.  "  She  has  returned,  as  I  forewarned  you, 
and  there  is  now  before  you  one  more  difficult  passage.  Her 
master,  you  must  say,  is  ill;  you  must  let  her  in,  with  an  assured 
but  rather  serious  countenance  —  no  smiles,  no  overacting,  and  1 
promise  you  success !  Once  the  girl  within,  and  the  door  closed, 
the  same  dexterity  that  has  already  rid  you  of  the  dealer  will  relieve 
you  of  this  last  danger  in  your  path.  Thenceforward  you  have  the 
whole  evening  -  the  whole  night,  if  needful  -  to  ransack  the  treas- 
ures of  the  house  and  to  make  good  your  safety.  This  is  help  that 


364  ENGLISH  COMPOSITION 

comes  to  you  with  the  mask  of  danger.  Up ! "  he  cried :  "  up, 
friend ;  your  life  hangs  trembling  in  the  scales :  up,  and  act ! " 

Markheim  steadily  regarded  his  counsellor.  "  If  I  be  condemned 
to  evil  acts,"  he  said,  "  there  is  still  one  door  of  freedom  open  —  I 
can  cease  from  action.  If  my  life  be  an  ill  thing,  I  can  lay  it  down. 
Though  I  be,  as  you  say  truly,  at  the  beck  of  every  small  temptation, 
I  can  yet,  by  one  decisive  gesture,  place  myself  beyond  the  reach 
of  all.  My  love  of  good  is  damned  to  barrenness ;  it  may,  and  let 
it  be!  But  I  have  still  my  hatred  of  evil;  and  from  that,  to  your 
galling  disappointment,  you  shall  see  that  I  can  draw  both  energy 
and  courage." 

The  features  of  the  visitor  began  to  undergo  a  wonderful  and 
lovely  change :  they  brightened  and  softened  with  a  tender  triumph ; 
and,  even  as  they  brightened,  faded  and  dislimned.  But  Mark- 
heim did  not  pause  to  watch  or  understand  the  transformation. 
He  opened  the  door  and  Went  down-stairs  very  slowly,  thinking  to 
himself.  His  past  went  soberly  before  him ;  he  beheld  it  as  it  was, 
ugly  and  strenuous  like  a  dream,  random  as  chance-medley  —  a 
scene  of  defeat.  Life,  as  he  thus  reviewed  it,  tempted  him  no 
longer ;  but  on  the  farther  side  he  perceived  a  quiet  haven  for  his 
bark.  He  paused  in  the  passage,  and  looked  into  the  shop,  where 
the  candle  still  burned  by  the  dead  body.  It  was  strangely  silent. 
Thoughts  of  the  dealer  swarmed  into  his  mind,  as  he  stood  gazing. 
And  then  the  bell  once  more  broke  out  into  impatient  clamour. 

He  confronted  the  maid  upon  the  threshold  with  something  like 
a  smile. 

"  You  had  better  go  for  the  police, "  said  he :  "I  have  killed  your 
master. " 


APPENDIX   I 
TRANSITIONAL  WORDS  WITHIN  THE   PARAGRAPH 

THE  following  list  makes  up  a  typical  bagful  of  connective  words 
and  phrases  which  help  writers  in  securing  transition  from  sen- 
tence to  sentence  within  the  paragraph.  We  do  not  pretend  that 
the  list  is  any  way  complete ;  it  may,  however,  present  the  student 
with  the  nucleus  of  a  collection. 

Connectives  are  used  in  the  following  ways :  — 

1.  To  imply  a  series:  — 

First,  secondly,  thirdly,  etc.;  again,  further,  finally. 

2.  To  imply  simple  addition:  — 

And,  also,  moreover,  again,  further,  finally,  and  then,  after,  next, 
when,  another,  too,  nay  more;  temporal  clauses  introduced  by 
when,  while,  etc. 

3.  To  imply  contrast:  — 

Yet,  still,  however,  but,  rather,  on  the  other  hand,  on  the  con- 
trary, nevertheless,  notwithstanding,  in  spite  of,  in  contrast  to 
this;  concessive  clauses  introduced  by  although  clauses. 

4.  To  indicate  reference  to  a  noun,  noun  clause,  etc.,  in  the 
preceding  sentence:  — 

Personal  and  demonstrative  pronouns,  this,  that,  etc.;  in  this 
way,  thus,  so,  such,  etc. 

5.  To  indicate  a  purpose  dependent  upon  the  idea  contained  in 
the  preceding  sentence:  — 

To  this  end,  for  this  purpose,  with  this  in  view,  keeping  this  in 
mind. 

6.  To  indicate  result :  — 

Therefore,  hence,  then,  it  follows  that,  consequently,  accordingly, 
if  this  be  true,  under  these  circumstances,  under  these  conditions. 

7.  To  bring  in  a  comparison :  — 

Equally  important,  more  effective,  quite  as  necessary,  not  so 
obvious. 

8.  To  continue  (or  enforce)  the  thought:  — 

365 


366  ENGLISH    COM  POSITION 

Truly,  really,  surely,  in  truth,  in  fact,  very  likely,  certainly, 
perhaps,  of  course,  to  be  sure,  naturally,  obviously,  it  is  certain, 
undoubtedly,  assuredly,  probably. 

9.  To  indicate  particularization :  — 

At  least,  at  any  rate,  anyhow,  for  example,  for  instance,  indeed, 
specifically,  in  particular,  in  especial;  and  nearly  all  adverbs  which 
contain  a  hint  of  relation  to  the  preceding  sentence,  as  unhappily, 
unfortunately,  happily,  fortunately,  etc. 

10.  To  indicate  change  of  place :  — 

Here,  there,  yonder,  beyond,  near  by,  opposite,  adjacent  to, 
round  about,  on  the  other  side,  underneath,  above,  in  either  place, 
westward,  etc. 

11.  To  indicate  change  of  time:  — 

At  length,  next,  soon,  whereupon,  immediately,  whereat,  after 
a  short  time,  not  long  after,  at  last,  finally,  meanwhile. 

NOTE.  Two  most  valuable  constructions  which  help  transi- 
tion should  never  be  forgotten.  Just  as  two  men  dressed  in  the 
same  uniform  are  instantly  noticed  by  every  one  as  bearing  some 
relation  to  each  other,  —  in  •  the  same  regiment,  perhaps  —  so 
sentences  having  an  identical  structure  are  recognized  as  related 
to  each  other.  Sentences  in  parallel  structure  are  most  valuable 
for  introducing  series  of  details.  Again,  just  as  a  fraternity  pin 
found  on  this  and  the  other  man  indicates  a  relation  between  these 
men,  so  a  word  repeated  from  one  sentence  to  the  other  is  often 
a  sufficient  means  of  transition. 


APPENDIX   II 
EXERCISES    IN    SENTENCE    STRUCTURE 

EXERCISES   IN   UNITY   OF   THE   SENTENCE 


1.  Break  these  sentences  up  into  their  component  statements. 
Each  statement  should  be  distinct  and  able  to  stand  alone.     See 
pages  112-119. 

2.  Tell  kind  of  co-ordinate  or  subordinate  relation  of  the  clauses. 
Seepages  115-116;  119-121.     Determine,  in  each  case,  whether 
the  relation  as  indicated  is  the  best  for  accurately  expressing  the 
thought  of  the  sentence. 

3.  Wherever  possible,  substitute  for  the  conjunctions  and  con- 
nective words  used  others  which  shall  indicate  the  same  relation. 

4.  Substitute  other  conjunctions  or  connectives  which  shall 
change  the  relation  of  the  clause,  and  note  the  difference  of  mean- 
ing. 

1.  The  ocean  is  rough,  for  the  billows  roar. 

2.  It  was  so  cold  that  my  ears  were  frosted. 

3.  Our  fathers  suffered  that  our  lives  might  run  smooth. 

4.  Another  day  appeared,  but  it  brought  me  no  peace. 

5.  You  cannot  have  tried  earnestly,  or  you  would  have  suc- 
ceeded. 

6.  The  sky  seems  clear,  yet  no  stars  are  visible. 

7.  The  more  a  man  has  the  more  he  wants. 

8.  We  waited  until  the  tide  came  in. 

9.  Though  I  arrived  late  at  the  theater,  I  managed  to  get  a  seat. 

10.  The  muscles  must  be  exercised  in  order  that  they  may  grow 
hard  and  firm. 

11.  I  have  few  clothes  to  wear,  nor  can  I  buy  food  to  eat. 

12.  I  don't  want  to  go;   moreover,  I  won't  go. 

367 


368  ENGLISH   COMPOSITION 

13.  He  does  not  approve  of  the  measure;   however,  he  will  not 
oppose  it. 

14.  He  kept  his  seat  at  the  rowing-bench  as  long  as  he  was  able. 

15.  Do  your  employer's  work  as  if  it  were  your  own. 

1 6.  Do  as  I  say,  else  you  can't  go. 

17.  Look  well  to  your  conduct;   for  actions  speak  louder  than 
words. 

18.  The  sea  is  so  rough  that  no  boat  can  live  upon  it. 

19.  You  will  be  in  the  first  honor  division,  provided  you  do 
not  fail  in  this  examination. 

20.  Think  twice  before  you  speak. 

21.  Though  I  admire  his  courage,  I  have  little  confidence  in 
his  integrity. 

22.  This  suit  doesn't  become  me;   besides,  it's  too  small. 

23.  Inasmuch  as  ye  have  done  it  unto  one  of  the  least  of  these 
my  brethren,  ye  have  done  it  unto  me. 

24.  Gas  is  formed  when  the  two  substances  are  mixed  together; 
hence  effervescence  takes  place. 

25.  Do  right  in  youth,  or  you  will  be  sorry  in  old  age. 

26.  Words  should  be  so  arranged  that  they  will  convey  the 
intended  meaning. 

27.  Burns,  although  he  was  poor  all  his  life,  was  for  the  most 
part  content  with  his  lot. 

28.  The  wind  died  down,  and  the  sails  flapped  feebly. 

29.  The  noise  pursues  me  wheresoe'er  I  go. 

30.  Electrical  engines  were  substituted  for  the  steam  locomotives 
in  order  that  the  smoke-nuisance  might  be  abated. 

31.  A  good  child  always  does  as  it  is  told. 

32.  I  like  him  because  he  always  speaks  as  he  thinks. 

33.  Her  voice  was  so  low  that  I  had  difficulty  in  hearing  her. 

34.  Take  heed  lest  you  fall. 

35.  You  have  more  modesty  than  is  absolutely  necessary. 

36.  Henson  was  disappointed  because  he  lost  the  pole-vault, 
as  he  had  been  confident  of  winning  it. 

37.  Railroads  are  useless  unless  the  public  is  willing  to  patronize 
them. 

38.  Since  his  administration  of  the  office  was  not  wholly  satis- 
factory, he  retired. 


APPENDIX  II  ^ 

39.  That  you  may  be  the  better  able  to  understand  this  point 
we  have  added  a  diagram  to  our  explanation. 

40.  He  that  is  comely  when  old  and  decrepit,  surely  was  very 
beautiful  when  he  was  young. 

41.  Clouds  gathered  over  the  hills;  gloom  was  spread  over  the 
valleys. 

42.  A  wise  son  will  hear  his  father's  reproof;  but  a  scorner  will 
not  hear  reproof. 

43.  The  rain  was  violent  enough  to  have  frightened  the  most 
valiant,  but  Robert  would  not  turn  back. 

44.  As  Sir  Roger  is  landlord  to  the  whole  congregation,  he  keeps 
them  in  very  good  order. 

45.  If  we  are  miserable,  it  is  very  consoling  to  think  that  there 
is  a  place  of  quiet. 

46.  Whither  thou  goest,  I  will  go ;  and  where  thou  lodgest,  I  will 
lodge. 

47.  As  the  barren  country  furnished  hardly  any  water,  they 
nearly  perished  with  thirst. 

48.  As  far  as  the  interests  of  freedom  are  concerned,  you  stand 
in  the  capacity  of  the  representatives  of  the  human  race. 

49.  'Tis  a  fine  thing  to  smart  for  one's  duty;  even  in  the  pangs 
of  it  there  is  contentment.     , 

50.  A  is  equal  to  B ;  B  is  equal  to  C ;  therefore,  A  is  equal  to  C. 

51.  If  you  have  tears,  prepare  to  shed  them  now. 

52.  Although  we  seldom  follow  advice,  we  are  all  willing  enough 
to  ask  for  it. 

53.  A  thaw  had  set  in  on  the  previous  evening;    the  ice  was, 
consequently,  unfit  to  skate  on. 

54.  Either  he  was  telling  the  truth;  or  else  he  is  a  consummate 
actor. 

55.  A  man  knows  just  as  much  as  he  taught  himself  —  no 
more. 

56.  I  should  not  even  have  attempted  the  task  but  that  I  was 
assured  of  success. 

57.  This  is  no  easy  task;  it  is  at  least  a  week's  job. 

58.  There  is  no  cutting  of  the  Gordian  knots  of  life;  each  must 
be  smilingly  unraveled. 

59.  His  debts  are  more  than  he  is  able  to  pay. 

2B 


370  ENGLISH   COMPOSITION 

60.  We  wonder  at  the  aeroplane  as  our  ancestors  did  at  the 
steamboat. 

61.  He  may  be  a  docile  citizen;  he  will  never  be  a  man. 

62.  As  science  makes  progress  in  any  subject-matter,  poetry 
recedes  from  it. 

63.  Statesmen  are  often  famous    as  writers;    Disraeli  wrote 
novels,  and  John  Hay  was  a  poet. 

64.  You  would  have  acted  wrongly  if  you  had  refused  help  to  the 
friend  from  whom  you  obtained  help  when  you  needed  it. 

65.  Prosperity  is  not  always  good  for  a  man;   Burns  suffered 
from  being  lionized  in  Edinburgh. 

66.  I  have  seldom  answered  any  scurrilous  lampoon  when  it  was 
in  my  power  to  have  exposed  my  enemies;   and,  being  naturally 
vindictive,  have  suffered  in  silence. 

67.  Wherever  they  marched,  the  route  was  marked  with  blood. 

68.  Pope  was  not  content  to  satisfy;  he  desired  to  excel;  and 
therefore  always  endeavored  to  do  his  best. 

69.  Superstition  is  wonderfully  persistent;    even  to  this  day 
many  people  will  not  sit  down  to  a  table  laid  for  thirteen  persons. 

70.  America   is  still  foremost  in  the  conquest  of  the  air;  the 
Wright  brothers  have  made  the  first  successful  aeroplane. 

71.  During  the  great  plague  in  London  the  people  perished  so 
fast  that  the  survivors  were  often  unable  to  give  suitable  burial. 

72.  I  was  impatient  to  see  it  come  upon  the  table;  but  when  it 
came,  I  could  scarce  eat  a  mouthful;  my  tears  choked  me. 

73.  The  height  of  spires  cannot  be  taken  by  trigonometry ;  they 
measure  absurdly  short,  but  how  tall  they  are  to  the  admiring  eye ! 

74.  While  he  was  speaking,  I  perceived  that  the  audience,  who 
had  at  first  strongly  opposed  him,  were  gradually  coming  around 
to  his  opinions. 

75.  Anderson  moved  around  uneasily;  he  readjusted  the  fur- 
niture; he  poked  the  fire  with  his  cane;  he  lowered  the  window 
shades  and  then  raised  them  again;  finally  he  sat  down. 

76.  The  soul  demands  unity  of  purpose,  not  the  dismember- 
ment of  man;   it  seeks  to  roll  up  all  his  strength  and  sweetness, 
all  his  passion  and  wisdom,  into  one. 

77.  After  we  had  stopped  for  a  few  minutes  at  the  house  where 
my  uncle  was  born,  we  young  people  visited  other  places  in  the 


APPENDIX  II  37I 

vicinity,  while  my  father  transacted  the  business  which  had  called 
him  to  town. 

78.  When  it  is  said  that  men  in  manhood  so  often  throw  their 
Greek  and  Latin  aside,  and  that  this  very  fact  shows  the  useless- 
ness  of  their  early  studies,  it  is  much  more  true  to  say  that  it  shows 
how  completely  the  literature  of  Greece  and  Rome  would  be  for- 
gotten, if  our  system  of  education  did  not  keep  up  the  knowledge 
of  it. 

79.  I  am  the  more  at  ease  in  Sir  Roger's  family,  because  it  consists 
of  sober,  staid  persons ;  for  as  the  knight  is  the  best  master  in  the 
world,  he  seldom  changes  his  servants;   and  as  he  is  beloved  by 
all  about  him,  his  servants  never  care  for  leaving  him;  by  this 
means  his  domestics  are  all  in  years,  and  grown  old  with  their 
master. 

80.  If  it  shall  be  concluded  that  the  meaner  sort  of  people  must 
give  themselves  up  to  a  brutish  stupidity  in  the  things  of  their 
nearest  concernment,  which  I  see  no  reason  for,  this  excuses  not 
those  of  a  freer  fortune  and  education,  if  they  neglect  their  under- 
standings, and  take  no  care  to  employ  them  as  they  ought,  and  set 
them  right  in  the  knowledge  of  those  things  for  which  principally 
they  were  given  them. 

81.  The  ships  were  in  extreme  peril ;  for  the  river  was  low,  and 
the  only  navigable  channel  ran  very  near  to  the  left  bank,  where  the 
headquarters  of  the  enemy  had  been  fixed ;  and  where  the  batteries 
were  most  numerous,  Leake  performed  his  duty  with  a  skill  and 
spirit  worthy  his  noble  profession,  exposed  his  frigate  to  cover  the 
merchantmen,  and  used  his  guns  with  great  effect. 

82.  Seeing  that  truth  consisteth  in  the  right  ordering  of  names 
in  our  affirmations,  a  man  that  seeketh  exact  truth  had  need  to 
remember  what  every  name  he  useth  stands  for,  and  to  place  it 
accordingly,  or  else  he  will  find  himself  entangled  in  words,  as 
a  bird  in  lime-twigs,  —  the  more  he  struggles,  the  more  belimed,  — 
and,  therefore,  in  geometry,  which  is  the  only  science  that  it  hath 
pleased  God  hitherto  to  bestow  on  mankind,  men  begin  at  settling 
the  significations  of  their  words ;   which  settling  of  significations 
they  call  definitions,  and  place  them  in  the  beginning  of  their 
reckoning. 

83.  But  much  latelier,  in  the  private  academies  of  Italy,  whither 


372  ENGLISH   COMPOSITION 

I  was  favored  to  resort,  perceiving  that  some  trifles  which  I  had  in 
memory,  composed  at  under  twenty  or  thereabout  —  for  the  man- 
ner is,  that  every  one  must  give  some  proof  of  his  wit  and  reading 
there  —  met  with  acceptance  above  what  was  looked  for;  and  other 
things  which  I  had  shifted,  in  scarcity  of  books  and  conveniences, 
to  patch  up  among  them,  were  received  with  written  encomiums 
which  the  Italian  is  not  forward  to  bestow  on  men  of  this  side 
the  Alps,  I  began  thus  far  to  assent  both  to  them  and  divers  of  my 
friends  here  at  home ;  and  not  less  to  an  inward  prompting,  which 
now  grew  daily  upon  me,  that  by  labor  and  intent  study,  which 
I  take  to  be  my  portion  in  life,  joined  to  the  strong  propensity 
of  nature,  I  might  perhaps  leave  something  so  written,  to  after- 
times,  as  they  should  not  willingly  let  it  die. 

B 

Study  the  following  groups  of  statements  to  determine  what 
relation  the  various  statements  in  each  group  bear  to  one  another. 
Combine  the  statements  of  each  group  into  one  unified  sentence, 
using  the  compound  type  as  sparingly  as  possible.  See  pages 
121-122. 

1.  The  time  is  short.     Prepare  for  action.     Much  remains  to  be 
done. 

2.  A  man  is  constrained  to  say  no.     He  does  not  hate  himself. 
There  is  something  wanting  in  the  man. 

3.  Benjamin  Franklin  once  paid  too  dearly  for  a  penny  whistle. 
He  went  through  life  an  altered  man. 

4.  Every  climate  has  its  peculiar  diseases.     Every  walk  of  life 
has  its  peculiar  temptations. 

5.  He  has  used  many  people  ill.     Assuredly  he  has  used  nobody 
so  ill  as  himself. 

6.  Their  names  were  not  found  in  the  registers  of  heralds. 
Their  names    were   recorded    in    the  Book  of  Life.     They  felt 
assured  of  this. 

7.  He  treats  himself  to  a  luxury.     He  must  do  it  in  the  face  of 
a  dozen  who  cannot. 

8.  William  Jones  complains.     He  is  the  "victim  of  prejudice 
created  in  the  community  by  the  unlawful  acts  of  others."     He 


APPENDIX   11 


373 


is  the  chauffeur  convicted  of  manslaughter  in  the  first  degree  by 
a  New  York  jury.  More  disinterested  observers  look  upon  the 
verdict  as  the  first  significant  warning.  Reckless  drivers  have 
received  this  warning. 

9.  The  woolen  coat  covers  the  day  laborer.  It  may  appear 
coarse.  It  is  the  produce  of  the  joint  labor  of  a  great  multitude 
of  workmen. 

10.  A  common  smith  is  accustomed  to  handle  a  hammer.     He 
has  never  been  used  to  make  nails.     Upon  some  particular  occa- 
sion he  is  obliged  to  attempt  it.     He  will  scarce  be  able  to  make 
above  two  or  three  hundred  in  a  day,  and  those,  too,  very  bad  ones. 
I  am  assured  of  this. 

11.  A  smith  has  been  accustomed  to  make  nails.     His  sole  or 
principal    business    has  not  been  that  of  a  nailer.     This  smith 
can   seldom  with   his  utmost  diligence   make   more   than   eight 
hundred  or  a  thousand  nails  in  a  day. 

12.  I    have   seen   several   boys   under   twenty   years  of  age. 
They    had    never    exercised    any    other    trade    than    that    of 
making   nails.     They  could    make,  each  of    them,  upwards  of 
two    thousand  three    hundred   nails  in   a  day.    They   exerted 
themselves. 

13.  I  must  not  venture  on  any  general  account  of  the  inter- 
pretation of  the  Constitution.     I  must  not  attempt  to  set  forth 
the  rules  of  construction  laid  down  by  judges  and  commentators. 
This  is  a  vast  matter  and  a  matter  for  law  books. 

14.  The  judiciary  is  the  only  interpreter  of  the  Constitution. 
It  is  an  error  to  suppose  this.    A  large  field  is  left  open  to  the  other 
authorities  of  the  government.    Their  views  need  not  coincide. 
A  dispute  between  those  authorities  may  be  incapable  of  being 
settled  by  any  legal  proceeding.    This  dispute  may  turn  upon  the 
meaning  of  the  Constitution. 

15.  You  have  everything  to  fear  from  the  success  of  the  enemy. 
You  have  every  means  of  preventing  that  success.     It  is  next  to 
impossible  for  victory  not  to  crown  your  exertions. 

1 6.  You  begin  stealing  a  little.    You  will  go  on  from  little  t( 
much.     You  will  soon  become  a  regular  thief.    Then  you  will 
be  hanged.     Or  you  will  be  sent  over  seas.    Transportation  is  no 
joke.     Give  me  leave  to  tell  you  this. 


374  ENGLISH   COMPOSITION 

17.  He  failed  to  blow  his  horn.     He  had  struck  the  boy.     After- 
wards he  deliberately  increased   his  speed.     Later    he    fled    to 
Texas.     He  was  finally  arrested  there. 

18.  This  idea  has  too  much  prevailed  among  a  certain  type  of 
automobile  drivers.     Their  rights  on  the  street  are  superior  to 
those  of  everybody  else.     They  sound  their  raucous  horns.     It 
is  the  duty  of  everybody  else  to  get  out  of  the  way.     Some  one  fails 
to  get  out  of  the  way.     He  consequently  gets  hurt.     It  is  his  own 
fault. 

19.  The  Yale  team  debated  this  year  with  Princeton.     Another 
Yale  team  debated  with  Harvard.     Another  Harvard  team  de- 
bated with  another  Princeton  team.     They  all  debated  on  the  same 
subject.     The  subject  was,  Resolved,  That  the  interstate  corpora- 
tions should  take  out  Federal  charters.     The  negative  teams  were 
all  on  their  home  grounds.     The  negative  teams  all  won.     Ap- 
parently the  home  grounds  or  the  negative  side  helped  those  teams 
to  win. 


The  following  sentences  lack  unity,  (i)  Tell  in  each  instance  the 
direct  cause  of  the  trouble.  Seepages  117-118;  122-125;  I27- 
(2)  Correct  the  sentences. 

1.  Milton  was  thrice  married  in  his  life,  the  latter  part  of  which 
was  spent  in  blindness. 

2.  I  also  noticed  the  grass,  which  was  brown,  but  it  will  soon 
be  green  again. 

3.  The   house  is   painted   brown,    and   was   built   early    last 
summer. 

4.  The  tiger  is  a  beautiful  animal,  and  has  been  known  to  live 
many  years  in  captivity. 

5.  He  was  brought  up  under  the  old  Blue  Laws,  and  he  shows 
this  in  all  his  habits  and  opinions. 

6.  I  worked  faithfully  for  my  employer,  who  one  morning  sur- 
prised me  by  raising  my  salary. 

7.  The  first  speaker  was  the  Senator  from  Missouri,  and  after 
he  had  finished  his  remarks,  the  chairman  arose. 

8.  He  tried  to  frighten  the  mouse  from  under  the  bureau,  but 
that  was  impossible,  and  then  he  tipped  it  over,  and  the  creature 


APPENDIX   II  375 

ran  out,  but  it  did  not  escape  for  Fido  sprang  upon  it  and  bit  off 
its  neck. 

9.  The  first  friend  that  my  Liquid  Food  found  was  one  I  made 
the  acquaintance  of  when  I  was  trying  to  obtain  the  law  for  for- 
feited life  insurance  policies,  as  every  sixth  person  lost  his  in  the 
past  year. 

10.  I  have  had  many  letters  given  me  by  surgeons  that  have 
found  my  Liquid  Food  a  great  assistant,  and  among  them  one 
from  Dr.  Brown  Sequargj  of  Paris,  with  whom  I  spent  a  pleasant 
half  hour,  and  three  months  later  he  brought  out  his  elixir  of  life, 
which  proved  of  no  value. 

n.  The  parade  was  headed  by  the  band  playing  all  the  college 
songs,  which  the  students  took  up,  and  every  now  and  then  a  long 
cheer  would  rend  the  air  for  this  class  or  that. 

12.  Here   and   there  are  half-burnt  matches  and  cigarettes, 
and  since  there  are  no  receptacles  to  place  these  in,  the  students  . 
also  invariably  spit  on  the  floor. 

13.  I  propose  to  do  enough  each  day  in  order  to  keep  right  along 
and  hear  what  is  being  explained  in  classes  for  me  as  much  as  for 
the  next  fellow;    and  in  this  way  acquire  enough  knowledge  of 
metallurgy  so  when  I  go  out  into  business  I  will  feel  I  have  ob- 
tained something  from  Yale  in  several  ways  for  my  conscientious 
efforts. 

14.  My  greatest  ambition  next  to  getting  a  practical  education 
is  to  meet  and  become  acquainted  with  the  best  men  in  my  class, 
so  as  to  do  as  much  as  I  can  towards  upholding  and  furthering 
the  honor  and  reputation  of  Yale. 

15.  The  whole  immense  line  wriggled  past  doing  the  famous 
snake  dance,  which  at  first  sight  presented  a  scene  of  confusion, 
but  which  really  was  in  the  most  perfect  order,  except  in  the  Fresh- 
man ranks,  where  they  were  not  only  strangers  to  each  other,  but 
were  ill  at  ease  on  account  of  the  wonderful  tales  that  they  h; 
heard. 

16    The  Restoration  did  not  bring  enough  money  to  the  Lord 
Castlewood  to  restore  this  ruined  part  of  his  house;  where  were  th 
morning  parlours,  above  them  the  long  music-gallery,  and  before 
which  stretched  the  garden-terrace,  where,  however   the  flowers 
grew  again  which  the  boots  of  the  Roundheads  had  trod 


376  ENGLISH  COMPOSITION 

their  assault,  and  which  was  restored  without  much  cost,  and  only 
a  little  care,  by  both  ladies  who  succeeded  the  second  viscount  in 
the  government  of  the  mansion. 

17.  She  was  a  wonderful  swimmer,  among  other  things,  and, 
one  early  morning,  when  she  was  a  girl,  she  did  really  swim,  they 
say,  across  the  Shannon  and  back,  to  win  a  bet  for  her  brother 
Lord  Levellier,  the  colonel  of  cavalry,  who  left  an  arm  in  Egypt 
and  changed  his  way  of  life  to  become  a  wizard,  as  the  common 
people  about  his  neighborhood  supposed,  because  he  foretold  the 
weather  and  had  cures  for  aches  and  pains  without  a  doctor's 
diploma. 

18.  My  General  Hospital  as  well  as  my  Infant  Hospital  did  good 
work  in  cleansing  the  diseases  from  the  system,  and  it  was  done  by 
our  Liquid  Food,  which  is  the  only  raw  food  extract  known  free 
from  insoluble  matter  and,  condensed  manyfold,  will  keep  in  all 
climates,  as  our  large  foreign  business  shows,  and  age,  if  kept  from 
exposure  to  heat  or  sun,  does  not  injure  it,  and  a  raw  food  is  three 
times  as  nutritious  as    a  cooked  one  provided  that  it  can  be 
digested,   and  when  ours  fails,  it  will  sustain  the  system  many 
weeks  when  used  as  enema. 


EXERCISES  IN   COHERENCE 

The  following  sentences  lack  coherence,  (i)  Point  out  the 
direct  cause  of  each  violation.  See  pages  128-134.  (2)  Correct 
the  sentences. 

1.  When  the  candy  came,  it  was  done  up  in  a  neat  little  box, 
and  we  ate  it. 

2.  He  nearly  caught  a  hundred  fish. 

3.  Walking  up  the  main  aisle  of  Evergreen  Cemetery,  two  large 
white  tombstones  are  seen. 

4.  I  had  to  attend  that  wedding,  as  he  is  a  relative  of  mine. 

5.  I  will  not  say  that  the  course  has  done  me  no  good,  which 
it  has. 

6.  The  final  vowel  is  only  elided  before  another  vowel. 

7.  While  playing  ball  one  Sunday,  the  Presbyterian  minister 
solemnly  reproved  us. 

8.  I  learned  what  a  poor  student  I  was  in  later  Inc. 


APPENDIX   II 


377 


9.   We  ate  a  great  deal  at  the  Pantheon  Cafe. 

10.  Being  one  of  the  strongest  Prep,  schools  in  the  state,  it  was 
-natural  for  us  to  be  a  little  over-confident. 

11.  She  only  lives  for  her  family. 

12.  The  Rector  spoke  to  the  young  man  who  had  been  intoxi- 
cated most  earnestly. 

13.  Turning  into  Chapel  Street,  an  automobile  threw  him  down. 

14.  When  I  last  saw  him  I  thought  him  happy,  and  that  he  had 
no  cause  for  complaint. 

15.  My  stepfather  was  very  harsh,  and  threatened  to  kill  me 
nearly  every  day. 

16.  They  also  wear  guards  to  protect  their  shins  that  are  made 
of  leather. 

17.  All  men  are  not  happy,  and  all  women  are  not  content. 

18.  You  had  better  tell  him,  if  he  is  doing  wrong,  to  reform  at 
once. 

19.  One  woman,  meeting  another,  said  to  her  that  her  chil- 
dren were  playing  in  her  yard  among  her  flowers,  and  that  they 
were  nearly  ruined,  and  she  had  better  look  after  them. 

20.  He  gave  a  learned  dissertation  on  the  recent  earthquake 
at  Harvard  College. 

21.  We  could  not  hear  distinctly  what  the  lecturer  said,  coming 
so  suddenly  into  the  crowded  room. 

22.  Knowing  this  to  be  safe,  and  also  that  it  is  the  best  plan, 
I  have  no  hesitation  in  going  to  work. 

23.  The  development  of  locomotion  from  ancient  times  to 
modern  times  has  been  most  wonderful. 

24.  Our  times  do  not  suffer  from  comparison  with  the  times  of 
Queen  Elizabeth,  though  these  are  called  the  good  old  times. 

25.  One  of  the  professors  is  lecturing  on  the  Battle  of  Waterloo 
in  College  Street  Hall. 

26.  Just  as  the  spectators  were  leaving  the  cockpit,  the  police 
burst  into  the  room,  saying  that  they  were  all  under  arrest. 

27.  And  he  spake  unto  his  sons,  saying,  "Saddle  me  the  ass    ; 
and  they  saddled  him. 

28.  Nineveh  was  so  completely  destroyed  that  we  cannot  pon 
out  the  place  where  it  stood  at  the  present  day. 

29.  He  is  a  man  of  no  education,  and  who  is  proud  of  the  fact. 


378  ENGLISH   COMPOSITION 

30.  Since  we  knew  that  he  was  always  late,  no  surprise  was  ex- 
pressed at  his  tardiness. 

31.  He  would  not  reply  until  he  had  closed  the  door,  and  lock- 
ing it. 

32.  I  shall  inform  him  what  I  want  to  do,  when  he  comes. 

33.  Coming  up  the  harbor  in  a  naphtha  launch,  the  monument 
on  East  Rock  soon  appeared. 

34.  They  came  to  demand  an  apology,  as  they  said,  for  the  great 
injury  that  had  been  done  them. 

35.  This  spring  serves  to  carry  the  electric  current  from  the 
battery  through  the  armature,  and  then  the  current  passes  through 
the  magnets. 

36.  Two  things  are  necessary  to  a  successful  athlete :  endurance, 
to  enable  him  to  stand  the  strain,  and  pluck  carries  him  through 
to  the  end. 

37.  Just  as  he  was   bidding   me   his   last  adieu,  his   nose  fell 
a-bleeding,  which  ran  in  miy  mind  a  pretty  while  after. 

38.  A  medal,  presented  by  the  French  government,  was  to-day 
sent  to  Jack  Binns  at  Luna  Park,  Coney  Island,  where  he  is  em- 
ployed, by  the  French  ambassador  at  Washington. 

39.  The  Senator  only  replied  to  the  reporter,  when  he  asked  him 
the  cause  of  his  apparent  unpopularity,  that  he  owed  it  to  his  refusal 
to  support  the  income  tax  bill,  which  gave  great  displeasure  to  the 
poorer  classes. 

40.  Old   Heidelberg  in  serving  these  four  famous  imported 
Beers  is  giving  its  patrons  the  choicest  products  of  the  German 
breweries,  being  drawn  under  the  pressure  of  pure  carbonic  acid 
gas,  makes  them  at  once  a  healthful  and  nourishing  beverage  and 
are  highly  recommended  by  the  leading  physicians  of  America 
and  Europe. 

EXERCISES  IN   EMPHASIS 

(i)  Determine  just  why  each  of  these  sentences  is  unemphatic. 
See  pages  134-147.     (2)  Correct  them. 

1.  Diana  of  the  Ephesians  is  great. 

2.  The  accepted  time  is  now. 

3.  He  led  a  life  of  sin  and  carelessness. 


APPENDIX  II  379 

4-   Let  him  go  to  the  dogs,  if  he  will  not  hear  the  counsel  which 
you  give  him. 

5.  I  am  sure  I  do  not  think  he  can  be  trusted,  to  any  great  extent. 

6.  A  scoundrel,  nothing  more  or  less,  he  was. 

7.  Though  Billy  was  clever,  and  at  times  even  brilliant,  yet 
he  was  far  from  standing  at  the  head  of  his  class,  with  all  his 
gifts. 

8.  True  worth  consists  in  character,  and  not  in  wealth,  as  many 
people  seem  to  think. 

9.  At  this  time  of  danger,  he  showed  indecision,  to  say  the  least. 

10.  Dishonesty  is  a  crime  I  have  never  been  charged  with,  what- 
ever other  faults  I  may  be  guilty  of. 

1 1 .  We  should  measure  success  by  quality,  not  by  the  amount  of 
it. 

12.  Success  is  always  greeted  by  applause;  but  silence  attends 
defeat. 

13.  There  are  to  be  better  accommodations  for  spectators  when 
the  new  stadium  is  built,  I  hear. 

14.  I  have  some  reason  to  believe  that  it  was  not  the  truth  that 
he  was  telling. 

15.  It  was  an  endless,  tiresome,  dreary,  unprofitable  task. 

1 6.  Dryden  often  surpasses  expectation,  and  Pope  never  gives 
us  less  than  we  expect.     Dryden  is  read  with    frequent  astonish- 
ment, and  Pope  gives  us  perpetual  delight. 

17.  He  was  the  greatest  of  our  warriors,  from  the  point  of  view 
of  planning  a  campaign,  not  from  that  of  personal  courage. 

1 8.  I  was  wandering  aimlessly  down  the  street,  when  I  saw  a 
most  pitiful  spectacle,  the  other  day. 

19.  Rambles  among  the  beauties  of  nature  please  the  eye,  soothe 
the  soul,  and  refresh  the  body. 

20.  His  health  was  not  good,  so  he  refused  to  exert  himself. 

21.  I  have  formed  the  habit  of  going  without  lunch,  although 
it  took  me  some  weeks  to  get  accustomed  to  it,  as  it  was  such  a 
change. 

22.  In  such  a  people,  the  haughtiness  of  domination  fortifies 
the  spirit  of  freedom,  renders  it  invincible,  and  combines  with  it. 

23.  I  hope,  sir,  that  England  is  a  nation  which  still  loves  her 
freedom,  and  formerly  adored  it. 


380  ENGLISH   COMPOSITION 

24.  It  was  snowing  severely,  and  the  company  did  not  come,  and 
the  ice  cream  all  melted. 

25.  It  is  not  reasonable  to  suppose  that  he  would  call  the  men 
liars,  as  he  was  always  of  a  mild  disposition. 

26.  It  was  raining,  and  I  went  down  town,  so  I  took  an  um- 
brella, and  did  not  get  wet. 

27.  Lastly,  I  impeach  the  common  enemy  and  oppressor  of  all, 
in  the  name  of  human  nature,  in  the  name  of  every  age,  in  the 
name  of  both  sexes,  in  the  name  of  every  rank. 

LOOSE  AND   PERIODIC   SENTENCES 

Which  of  the  following  sentences  are  loose,  and  which  periodic  ? 
Are  the  loose  in  every  instance  necessarily  unemphatic  ?  If 
possible  turn  the  loose  into  periodic,  and  the  periodic  into  loose, 
and  note  the  change  in  emphasis. 

1.  On  parting  with  the  old  angler  I   inquired  after  his  place 
of  abode,  and  happening  to  be  in  the  neighborhood  of  the  village 
a  few  evenings  afterwards,  I  had  the  curiosity  to  seek  him  out. 

2.  I  found  him  living  in  a  small  cottage,  containing  only  one 
room,  but  a  perfect  curiosity  in  its  method  and  arrangement. 

3.  It  was  on  the  skirts  of  the  village,  on  a  green  bank,  a  little 
back  from  the  road,  with  a  small  garden  in  front,  stocked  with 
kitchen  herbs  and  adorned  with  a  few  flowers. 

4.  A  hammock  was  swung  from  the  ceiling,  which,  in  the  day- 
time, was  lashed  up  so  as  to  take  but  little  room. 

5.  On  a  shelf  was  arranged  his  library,  containing  a  work  on 
angling,  much  worn,  a  Bible  covered  with  canvas,  an  odd  volume 
or  two  of  voyages,  a  nautical  almanac,  and  a  book  of  songs. 

6.  Of  all  the  deeds  of  darkness  yet  compassed  in  the  Nether- 
lands, this  was  the  worst. 

7.  When  it  is  remembered,  also,  that  the  burghers  were  in- 
sufficiently armed,  that  many  of  their  defenders  turned  against 
them,  that  many  thousands  fled  in  the  first  moments  of  the  en- 
counter —  and  when  the  effect  of  a  sudden  and  awful  panic  is 
considered,  the  discrepancy  between  the  number  of  killed  on  the 
two  sides  will  not  seem  so  astonishing. 


APPENDIX  II  381 

8.  If  so  much  had  been  done  by  Holland  and  Zealand,  how 
much  more  might  be  hoped  when  all  the  provinces  were  united? 

9.  By  thus  preserving  a  firm  and  united  front,  sinking  all  minor 
differences,  they  would,  moreover,  inspire  their  friends  and  foreign 
princes  with  confidence. 

10.  While  thus  exciting  to  union  and  firmness,  he  also  took 
great  pains  to  instill  the  necessity  of  wariness. 

11.  There  stood  the  young  conqueror  of  Lepanto,  his  brain 
full  of  schemes,  his  heart  full  of  hopes,  on  the  threshold  of  the 
Netherlands,  at  the  entrance  to  what  he  believed  the  most  brilliant 
chapter  of  his  life  —  schemes,  hopes  and  visions  doomed  speedily 
to  fade  before  the  cold  reality  with  which  he  was  to  be  confronted. 

12.  As  Charles  the  Fifth,  on  his  journey  to  Italy  to  assume  the 
iron  crown,  had  caused  his  hair  to  be  clipped  close,  as  a  remedy 
for  the  headaches  with  which,  at  that  momentous  epoch,  he  was 
tormented,    bringing   thereby   close   shaven   polls   into   extreme 
fashion,  so  a  mass  of  hair  pushed  back  from  the  temples,  in  the 
style  to  which  the  name  of  John  of  Austria  was  appropriated, 
became  the  prevailing  mode. 

13.  Changed  to  the  very  core,  yet  hardly  conscious  of  the  change, 
drifting  indeed  steadily  towards  a  wider  knowledge  and  a  firmer 
freedom,  but  still  a  mere  medley  of  Puritan  morality  and  social 
revolt,  of  traditional  loyalty  and  political  skepticism,  of  bigotry 
and  free  inquiry,  of  science  and  Popish  plots,  the  England  of  the 
Restoration  was  reflected  in  its  King. 

14.  The  Convention  of  1787  were  well  advised  in  making  their 
draft  [of  the  constitution]  short,  because  it  was  essential  that  the 
people  should  understand  it,  because  fresh  differences  of  opinions 
would  have  emerged  the  further  they  had  gone  into  details,  and 
because  the  more  one  specifies,  the  more  one  has  to  specify  and  to 
attempt  the  impossible  task  of  providing  beforehand  for  all  con- 
tingencies. 

15.  He  grasped  with  extraordinary  force  and  clearness  the  car 
dinal  idea  that  the  creation  of  a  national  government  implies  the 
grant  of  all  such  subsidiary  powers  as  are  requisite  to  the  effectua- 
tion of  its  main  powers  and  purposes,  but  he  developed  and  applied 
this  idea  with  so  much  prudence  and  sobriety,  never  treading  on 
purely  political  ground,  never  indulging  the  temptation  to  theorize, 


382  ENGLISH  COMPOSITION 

but  content  to  follow  out  as  a  lawyer  the  consequences  of  legal 
principles,  that  the  Constitution  seemed  not  so  much  to  rise  under 
his  hands  to  its  full  stature,  as  to  be  gradually  unveiled  by  him  till 
it  stood  in  the  harmonious  perfection  of  the  form  which  its  framers 
had  designed. 

1 6.  To  be  honest,  to  be  kind  —  to  earn  a  little  and  to  spend  a 
little  less,  to  make  upon  the  whole  a  family  happier  for  his  presence, 
to  renounce  when  that  shall  be  necessary  and  not  to  be  embittered, 
to  keep  a  few  friends,  but  these  without  capitulation  —  above  all, 
on  the  same  grim  conditions,  to  keep  friends  with  himself  —  here 
is  a  task  for  all  that  a  man  has  of  fortitude  and  delicacy. 


APPENDIX   III 
EXERCISES   IN  THE   USE   OF   WORDS 

For  common  errors  in  spelling,  faulty  diction,  etc.,  the  student 
is  referred  to  Dr.  E.  C.  Woolley's  Handbook  of  Composition,  1909. 

1.  Let  the  student  correct  sentences  like  the  following:  - 
He  always  finishes  whatsoever  he  begins. 

You  are  now  embarked  on  this  vale  of  tears  called  college  life. 
I  guess  the  metallurgical  course  isn't  such  a  cinch  as  most 
everybody  seem  to  think. 

My  home  town  is  the  finest  little  burg  in  God's  country. 

2.  The  student  should  read  some  of  the  selections  appended  to 
the  chapter  on  Description,  and  copy  out  from  them  the  words  that 
convey  descriptive  power. 

3.  If  the  writing  of  vague  paragraphs  is  a  trouble,  paragraphs 
like  the  one  below  should  be  rewritten,  with  attention  to  the  use 
of  specific  words. 

The  place  where  I  go  in  the  summer  is  rather  pretty.  It  is 
pretty  near  the  water,  and  the  mountains  back  of  it  are  high  and 
very  fine.  They  are  covered  with  trees,  which  come  down  rather 
near  to  the  shore,  and  give  the  place  a  kind  of  uncultivated  ap- 
pearance. There  are  a  good  many  kinds  of  fish  in  the  lake,  and 
there  is  considerable  good  hunting  in  the  woods  during  the  season. 
Near  the  house  where  I  go  there  are  hardly  any  people,  so  when 
I  want  company  I  go  across  the  lake  in  my  motor-boat  to  the  hotel, 
where  there  are  a  lot  of  fellows  I  know.  There  is  a  good  deal  going 
on  most  of  the  time  at  the  hotel,  and  we  have  fun  in  many  ways. 

The  best  time  to  see  the  lake  from  our  house  is  late  in  the  after- 
noon. You  can  see  the  sun  on  the  water  just  at  that  time,  and  the 
sky  above  the  mountains  is  bright  and  pretty,  especially  if  there 
are  some  clouds.  Everything  is  kind  of  quiet  then,  and  on  the 
whole  that  time  of  the  day  is  the  best  to  enjoy  the  view  in. 
383 


384  ENGLISH   COMPOSITION 

4.  The  teacher  may  with  profit  "pi"  a  good  paragraph,  and 
ask  the  students  to  rewrite  it,  inserting  the  specific  touches  which 
give  it  its  merit.      An  example  is  appended,  with  apologies  to 
Robert  Louis  Stevenson,  from  Chapter  XXI  of  David  Balfour. 

The  ship  lay  at  anchor,  near  the  pier  of  Leith,  so  that  people  had 
to  come  to  it  in  small  boats.  This  was  easy,  because  the  day 
was  calm,  though  cool  and  cloudy.  I  could  not  see  the  vessel  at 
first  until  I  saw  her  masts  which  were  above  the  fog.  When  I 
came  on  the  boat,  I  found  that  she  was  a  large  ship,  and  full  of 
things  for  the  Continental  trade.  The  captain,  although  ap- 
parently very  busy,  was  quite  friendly  to  me. 

5.  As  an  exercise  in  the  specific  word,  let  the  student  attempt 
a  detailed  description  of  a  familiar  object,  which  belongs  never- 
theless to  a  perhaps  unfamiliar  art,  e.g.  a  description  of  the  facade 
of  a  building,  of  the  pavement  of  a  street. 

6.  Exercises  in  synonyms,  if  not  too  mechanical,  are  always 
helpful.     The  student  should  be  trained  to  use  the  dictionary 
in  his  search  for  synonyms. 

7.  Examine  the  following  extract,  for  the  masterly  use  of  the 
specific  word. 

LINCOLN'S  LETTER  TO  HORACE  GREELEY 

AugUSt  22,    1862. 

I  have  just  read  yours  of  the  ipth  instant,  addressed  to  myself 
through  the  "New  York  Tribune." 

If  there  be  in  it  any  statements  or  assumptions  of  fact  which  I 
know  to  be  erroneous,  I  do  not  now  and  here  controvert  them. 

If  there  be  in  it  any  inferences  which  I  may  believe  to  be  falsely 
drawn,  I  do  not  now  and  here  argue  against  them. 

If  there  be  perceptible  in  it  an  impatient  and  dictatorial  tone, 
I  waive  it,  in  deference  to  an  old  friend  whose  heart  I  have  always 
supposed  to  be  right. 

As  to  the  policy  I  "seem  to  be  pursuing,"  as  you  say,  I  have  not 
meant  to  leave  any  one  in  doubt.  I  would  save  the  Union.  I  would 
save  it  in  the  shortest  way  under  the  Constitution. 

The  sooner  the  national  authority  can  be  restored,  the  nearer 
the  Union  will  be,  —  the  Union  as  it  was. 


APPENDIX   III 


385 


If  there  be  those  who  would  not  save  the  Union  unless  they 
could  at  the  same  time  save  slavery,  I  do  not  agree  with  them. 

If  there  be  those  who  would  not  save  the  Union  unless  they 
could  at  the  same  time  destroy  slavery,  I  do  not  agree  with  them. 

My  paramount  object  in  this  struggle  is  to  save  the  Union,  and 
not  either  to  save  or  to  destroy  slavery. 

If  I  could  save  the  Union  without  freeing  any  slave,  I  would  do 
it ;  if  I  could  save  it  by  freeing  all  the  slaves,  I  would  do  it ;  and 
if  I  could  save  it  by  freeing  some  and  leaving  others  alone,  I  would 
also  do  that. 

What  I  do  about  slavery  and  the  colored  race,  I  do  because 
I  believe  it  helps  to  save  the  Union ;  and  what  I  forbear,  I  forbear 
because  I  do  not  believe  it  would  help  to  save  the  Union. 

I  shall  do  less  whenever  I  shall  believe  that  what  I  am  doing 
hurts  the  cause;  and  I  shall  do  more  whenever  I  shall  believe 
doing  more  will  help  the  cause. 

I  shall  try  to  correct  errors  where  shown  to  be  errors,  and  I 
shall  adopt  new  views  as  fast  as  they  shall  appear  to  be  true  views. 

I  have  here  stated  my  purpose  according  to  my  views  of  official 
duty,  and  I  intend  no  modification  of  my  oft-expressed  personal 
wish  that  all  men  everywhere  could  be  free. 

Yours, 

A.  LINCOLN. 


2C 


APPENDIX   IV 
SPECIMEN    BRIEF 

Resolved  that  further  material  additions  to  the  United  States 
navy  are  undesirable. 

INTRODUCTION 

I.  The  policy  of  our  country  during  recent  years  has  been  one 
of  naval  expansion. 

A.  Naval  appropriations  in  Congress  have  been  steadily  in- 

increasing. 

B.  Our  navy  has  grown  from  insignificance  to  the  rank  of 

the  second  navy  of  the  world. 

II.  The  question  before  us  is  whether  or  not  we  shall  continue 
this  policy. 

A .  It  is  not  a  question  as  to  whether  or  not  we  shall  replace 

worn-out  ships  and  train  efficient  seamen, 
i.  Negative  and  affirmative  both  desire  all  this. 

B.  The  question  is,  Shall  we  increase  the  number  of  our  new 

battle-ships  ? 

III.  The  answer  to  this  question  depends  on  the  following  con- 
siderations : 

A .  Is  a  larger  navy  necessary  to  assure  our  safety  ? 

B.  Would  a  larger  navy  be  an  encouragement  to  peace  or  an 

incentive  to  war? 

C.  Could  the  money  required  for  a  larger  navy  be  more  ad- 

vantageously spent  in  other  ways? 

IV.  We  contend  that  material  additions  to  our  navy  are  undesir- 
able. 

BRIEF   PROPER 

I.  A  larger  navy  is  unnecessary,  for 

A.  There  is  no  danger  of  war  in  the  near  future,  for 
386 


APPENDIX   IV 


387 


1.  Our  foreign  relations  are  friendly,  for 
a.  The  voyage  of  our  fleet  showed  this. 

2.  Foreign  powers  have  troubles  of  their  own  at  home,  fdr 

a.  Japan  and  Russia  are  impoverished. 

x.  Japanese  statesmen  have  said  that  their  country 
is  too  poor  to  go  to  war. 

b.  Germany  and  England  are  more  jealous  of  each 

other  than  of  us,  for 

x.  The  alarm  in  England  at  Germany's  new  build- 
ing program  shows  this. 
y.  Germany's  new  navy  is  intended  to  fight  in  home 

waters,  for 

a.  The  new  ships  have  small  coal  capacity. 
B.  Even  if  there  were  a  war,  our  present  navy  is  sufficient,  for 

1.  Our  present  navy  is  equal  to  that  of  any  country  but 

England. 

2.  A  foreign  nation  would  have  to  pit  part  of  its  navy 

against  the  whole  of  ours,  for 
a.  They  would  have  to  keep  part  of  their  ships  at  home, 

for 
x.  They  are  jealous  of  their  neighbors  there. 

3.  Any  navy  attacking  us  would  be  far  from  its  base  of 

supplies. 

4.  Our  coast  defences  are  strong,  for 

a.  All  of  our  large  seaports  are  well  fortified. 

b.  Land  batteries  have  a  natural  advantage  over  ships. 
II.  A  larger  navy  would  be  an  incentive  to  war,  for 

A .  The  consciousness  of  strength  creates  an  aggressive  spirit, 
i.  It  has  done  this  in  Germany  and  Japan. 

B.  It  arouses  the  jealousy  of  other  nations. 

i.  This  is  shown  in  the  feeling  between  England  and  Ger- 
many. 
III.  We  have  better  ways  for  spending  our  money,  for 

A.  Even  from    a   military  point  of  view  the  money  would 

amount  to  more  along  other  lines,  for 
i.  More  should  be  spent  on  coast  defences,  for 
a.  These  could  be  made  almost  impregnable,  for 
x.  Some  of  the  best  of  them  are  practically  so  now. 


388  ENGLISH  COMPOSITION 

2.  More  should  be  spent  on  the  personnel  of  our  army  and 

navy,  for 

a.  Men  count  more  than  ships. 

x.  This  was  shown  in  the  Spanish  war. 

b.  Our  coast  defences  are  now  short  of  men,  for 

x.  Recent  statements  show  that  some  of  them  have 
not  a  quarter  of  their  required  quota. 

3.  Battleships  at  present  are  a  bad  financial  investment,  for 

a.  They  are  hardly  launched  before  they  are  out  of  date. 

b.  The  discoveries  along  the  lines  of  airships  or  sub- 

marines  may   at    any  time   make  battleships 
worthless,  for 

x.  The  Wright  brothers  claim  that  they  already 
could  drop  explosives  on  a  battleship. 

B.  This  money  is  needed  to  develop  the  arts  of  peace,  for 

1.  Vast  improvements  are  needed  at  the  Panama  Canal. 

2.  Great  sums  are  needed  to  develop  irrigation  in  the  West. 
a.  Millions  of  acres  of  fertile  land  there  are  desert. 

3.  It  is  needed  for  great  charitable  enterprises,  for 

a.  The  poor  whites  of  the  South  must  be  redeemed. 

b.  The  children  of  the  poor  must  have  better  ad- 

vantages. 

C.  Some  of  this  money  should  be  left  in  the  pockets  of  the 

tax  payers,  for 
i.  Otherwise   the   navy   would   become   an   unbearable 

burden,  for 
a.  It  would  involve  the  tax  payer  in  an  endless  chain 

of  expense,  for 
x.  It  would  be  better  entering  on  a  race  of  endless 

rivalry  with  European  powers,  for 
a.  They  would  be  unwilling  to  let  us  surpass  them. 

CONCLUSION 

Since  a  larger  navy  is  unnecessary  for  our  safety,  since  it  would 
be  an  incentive  to  war,  and  since  the  money  required  for  it  could 
be  more  advantageously  spent  in  other  ways,  we  maintain  that  any 
material  increase  in  our  navy  is  undesirable. 


APPENDIX  V 

EXERCISES  IN  DESCRIPTION 

Familiar  scenes  and  persons  are  best.  The  postoffice,  the 
early  morning  (or  the  dreamy  afternoon)  recitation,  the  railway 
station,  the  trolley-car  on  a  rainy  day,  a  new  building,  the  class  — 
anything  the  student  sees  constantly  will  do. 

Nowhere  else  is  rewriting  so  necessary.  It  is  easy  to  write  a 
vague  description  of  a  street  corner,  not  so  easy  to  bring  the  scene 
to  life.  A  good  way  to  teach  character  in  description  is  to  let  the 
student  write  a  typical  description  first,  as  A  Postman,  A  Band- 
master, A  Conductor;  and  then  to  make  him  describe  a  particular 
individual  of  the  type,  so  that  no  other  of  the  class  could  be  mis- 
taken for  him.  Another  good  way  is  to  let  the  class  write  a  very 
full  and  detailed  description  of  some  character  with  which  they  are 
all  familiar,  and  then  to  have  them  cut  out  all  save  the  most  salient 
points  in  the  description,  and  observe  the  effect. 

Description  can  best  be  taught  in  brief  themes.  Let  the  students 
describe  pictures,  personal  appearance,  etc.,  in  paragraphs  of  two 
or  three  sentences.  Good,  brief  newspaper  descriptions  should  be 
sought  for  and  cut  out.  Outline  sketches  of  persons  should  be 
written  in  a  form  sufficiently  detailed  for  clear  identification. 

Typical  suggested  subjects  are  the  following:  A  Camp 
Nocturne,  Becalmed,  The  Tune  I  Like  Best,  Two  Views  of  My 
Home  Town,  A  Journey  by  Rail,  The  Immigrant,  Voices  I  Could 
Identify,  An  Interesting  Personality,  How  to  Identify  Foreigners 
at  Sight.1 

1  For  additional  selections  the  reader  is  referred  to  Professor  C.  S. 
Baldwin's  Specimens  of  Prose  Description,  New  York,  1895  (Henry  Holt), 
and  to  Manual  of  Composition  and  Rhetoric,  J.  H.  Gardiner,  G.  L. 
Kittredge,  and  S.  H.  Arnold,  Boston,  1907  (Ginn  and  Co.),  pp.  132-133, 
and  elsewhere. 

389 


390  ENGLISH  COMPOSITION 

Almost  any  novel  of  reputation  is  full  of  good  descriptions,  and 
the  student  can  well  be  turned  loose  to  copy  out  favorite  passages, 
or  to  pick  descriptive  phrases  from  assigned  passages,  or  to  de- 
scribe the  method  employed  in  a  particular  description.  The 
poetry  of  Wordsworth,  Tennyson,  and  Arnold  is  full  of  famous 
descriptive  passages. 


APPENDIX  VI 

SUGGESTIONS  FOR  EXERCISES  IN  NARRATIVE 
WRITING 

Themes  of  at  least  four  different  varieties  should  be  assigned :  — 

(a)  Simple  narratives  which  will  give  experience  in  selecting  the 
important  and  significant  incidents  from  among  the  unimportant  and 
insignificant.  Such  subjects  as  "  The  Most  Interesting  Happening 
in  My  Life,"  "The  Most  Exciting  Event  in  My  Life,"  "My 
Average  Day,"  will  be  useful. 

(b~)  Exercises  in  realistic  narrative,  as,  for  example,  a  narrative 
of  an  improbable  or  impossible  event  which  must  read  as  if  it 
were  true,  or  a  narrative  of  a  very  ordinary  happening  which  has 
to  be  so  realistic  that  it  becomes  interesting.  Reporting  for  a 
hypothetical  newspaper  is  excellent  practice. 

(c)  Stories  written  upon  plots  given  by  the  instructor.  The 
plots  should  be  capable  of  development  in  brief  space,  and  should 
suggest  plenty  of  action,  or  character  work.  A  few  useful  speci- 
mens follow.  It  is  recommended  that  the  instructor  add  to  this 
list  old  and  well  tried  plots  like  that  of  The  Pardoner's  Tale 
here  included,  since  they  may  be  easily  applied  to  modern  con- 
ditions, and  are,  like  tested  seeds,  sure  to  be  satisfactory :  — 

Two  men  steal  a  treasure.  Each  desires  to  have  all  of  it.  One 
poisons  the  other,  and  is  himself  murdered. 

A  desperate  man,  being  suspected  of  a  crime,  asserts  his  guilt. 
A  friend,  deeply  indebted  to  him,  takes  the  blame  upon  his  shoulders. 
The  real  criminal  confesses  and  saves  both. 

Two  men  are  anxious  to  lead  their  class  at  graduation.  One  is 
brilliant  but  unsteady,  the  other,  persevering  but  slow.  The 
friends  of  the  second  man  endeavor  to  assure  his  success  by 
encouraging  the  dissipations  of  the  first. 

A  senior  at  college  asks  two  girls  in  succession  to  be  his  guests  at 
the  college  promenade.  Both  refuse,  and  both  reconsider  at  the 
last  minute.  He  introduces  each  to  the  other  as  a  chaperone. 


392  ENGLISH  COMPOSITION 

The  "black  sheep"  of  a  family  comes  back  after  one  of  his 
periodical  disappearances  to  find  his  identity  denied  by  every  one 
directly  concerned. 

A  man  suddenly  acquires  the  power  of  seeing  through  solids. 

X  has  a  double  who  is  publicly  disgraced  in  Y  just  as  X  is  run- 
ning for  mayor  of  Z. 

A  man  suddenly  discovers  that  instead  of  having  to  pay  for  what 
he  gets,  he  receives  what  he  asks  for  together  with  the  price  of  the 
article. 

Scene  of  a  story  to  be  laid  within  the  light  of  a  street  lantern; 
the  time,  when  the  lamp  is  near  going  out ;  and  the  catastrophe  to 
be  simultaneous  with  the  last  flickering  gleam. 

Richard  Steele  despised  dueling,  and  persuaded  a  close  friend  to 
refuse  a  challenge.  The  friend  was  unable  to  endure  the  stigma 
of  cowardice  laid  upon  him  by  his  refusal,  and  challenged  Steele 
to  fight  him.  Thus  Steele,  through  his  hatred  of  dueling,  was 
forced  to  fight  a  duel  with  a  dear  friend. 

A  company  of  persons  drink  a  certain  drug,  which  would  prove 
a  poison  or  the  contrary,  according  to  their  real  character.  No 
one  dares  to  refuse  to  drink,  for  that  would  be  a  confession  of  both 
cowardice  and  guilty  conscience ;  yet  each  one  fears  a  fatal  result. 

A  Suicide  Club,  whose  mode  of  suicide  is  the  game  of  the  "  Tiger 
and  the  Hunter."  Members  draw  lots  to  decide  who  shall  be  the 
tiger  and  who  the  hunter.  A  silver  bell  is  hung  around  the  tiger's 
neck,  and  the  hunter  is  given  a  loaded  revolver.  Both  enter  a 
large  darkened  room,  and  the  spectators  take  refuge  in  the  corners. 
The  hunt  begins.  The  hunter's  eyes  are  bound.  He  is  allowed 
six  shots,  guided  by  the  sound  of  the  bell.  If  he  fails  to  hit  the 
tiger,  the  roles  are  reversed,  and  the  hunter  becomes  the  tiger. 
This  continues  until  blood  flows. 

A  man  and  his  wife,  both  out  of  work,  hunt  for  it  despairingly 
day  after  day,  while  their  children  suffer.  Finally,  on  the  same 
day,  both  find  work  and  each  hurries  home  to  tell  the  good  news. 
They  arrive  at  home  together,  only  to  find  that  the  Gerry  Society 
agents  have  taken  the  children  away. 

A  foreign-appearing  stranger  thrusts  into  a  man's  hand  a  little 
package,  telling  him  to  guard  it  closely,  and  to  never  open  it.  The 
foreigner  disappears.  The  man  obeys  for  a  time,  and  then  his 


APPENDIX    VI  393 

curiosity  gets  the  best  of  him,  and  he  opens  it  to  find  a  small 
charm  or  key,  to  which  is  attached  a  small  parchment,  evidently  in 
Arabic  or  a  similar  tongue.  He  goes  to  various  rug  and  fruit 
merchants,  but  is  each  time  treated  more  coldly,  while  no  one  will 
tell  him  what  the  thing  is.  Suddenly  he  realizes  that  he  is  being 
dogged,  writes  the  history  of  the  thing,  and  is  found  dead,  with  the 
MS.  before  him,  every  exit  locked  from  within,  and  the  key  missing. 

A  young  surgeon  is  in  love  with  a  girl,  who  dies  suddenly.  He 
objects  to  a  post-mortem,  but  as  the  coroner  insists,  determines  to 
perform  it  himself.  He  makes  an  incision  over  the  heart,  and  as 
he  raises  the  flesh  from  it,  the  heart  begins  to  beat,  and  respira- 
tion resumes.  He  replaces  the  flesh,  and  the  action  stops,  to 
resume  when  he  again  lifts  the  flesh.  Every  time  he  replaces  the 
flesh  heart  action  ceases.  What  is  he  to  do  ? 

A  young  author,  pretending  to  need  help  in  one  of  his  stories, 
which  involves  a  proposal,  himself  proposes  under  cover  of  getting 
help  on  his  story. 

Two  men,  stopping  at  a  village  hotel,  are  writing  a  melodrama 
together.  A  servant  overhears  them  discuss  the  murder  of  the 
heroine's  sister  (or  some  character)  and  informs  the  village  police. 
The  constable  gathers  a  strong  posse  and  arrests  them.  They 
are  brought  before  the  local  justice  of  the  peace,  who  is  soon  glad 
to  acquit  them. 

A  wealthy  man  hates  the  idea  of  being  dogged  by  private  detec- 
tives, but  feels  the  need  of  personal  protection.  He  makes  arrange- 
ments with  a  Detective  Agency  whereby  he  will  be  always 
guarded,  but  the  guards  will  be  constantly  changed  so  that  he 
will  not  know  who  his  guard  is,  and  will  not  feel  that  any  one  is 
dogging  him.  As  a  result,  one  of  his  guards  takes  advantage  of  the 
fact  that  the  man  does  not  know  him,  and  robs  him. 

Hyman  Chainovitz  of  73  Delancey  Street  (New  York)  read  in 
the  papers  yesterday  that  his  divorced  wife,  Mrs.  Sarah  Kolman, 
had  found  a  young  man  in  Newark  who,  she  thinks,  is  their  son, 
who  was  kidnaped  in  Russia  sixteen  years  ago.  ^  He  went  over 
to  investigate.  He  had  not  known  before  that  his  former  wife 
was  in  this  country  or  that  their  child  had  been  kidnaped,  hav- 
ing left  Russia  soon  after  he  and  his  wife  separated.  [Later 
reports  have  established  the  identity  of  the  boy  as  their  son.] 


394 


ENGLISH  COMPOSITION 


(d)  Stories  written  upon  plots  chosen  by  the  writer.  These 
plots  may  be  either  invented  or  taken  from  stories  told  orally  in 
the  presence  of  the  writer.  They  must  not  be  taken  from  stories 
which  have  been  read.  The  student  should  be  encouraged  to  take 
situations,  so  far  as  possible,  for  the  nuclei  of  his  tales. 


APPENDIX  VII 
PUNCTUATION 

The  purpose  of  punctuation  is  to  assist  the  reader  by  showing 
him,  at  a  glance,  the  relations  of  words,  phrases,  and  clauses. 
An  unpunctuated  sentence  gives  the  reader  more  or  less  trouble, 
according  to  the  complexity  of  the  sentence;  a  mispunctuated 
sentence  confuses  or  misleads  the  reader,  as  may  be  seen  by  the 
selection  at  the  end  of  this  chapter.  As  punctuation  is  used  to 
show  the  relation  of  the  various  parts  of  the  sentence,  it  is  generally 
controlled  by  the  grammatical  structure  of  the  sentence.  The 
easy,  slipshod,  and  indefinite  rule,  too  often  taught  in  the  lower 
grades,  that  a  comma  is  to  be  used  for  a  short  pause  in  the  sentence, 
a  semicolon  for  a  long  pause,  and  a  colon  for  a  very  long  pause, 
is  as  inaccurate  as  it  is  vague,  and  should  be  disregarded.  Punctua- 
tion is  a  matter  of  logical  convention,  based  upon  the  grammatical 
relation  of  the  parts  of  the  .sentence. 

The  generally  accepted  rules  are  given  below.  Good  authorities 
sometimes  vary  from  these  rules,  in  minor  details;  but,  for  the 
sake  of  consistency,  the  inexperienced  student  of  composition 
should  strictly  follow  them. 

THE    CAPITAL 

Capitals  should  be  used  for:  — 

1.  The  first  word  of  every  sentence,  or  of  any  direct  quotation, 
or  question  within  a  sentence;  as,  He  asked,  "What  is  the  trouble?  " 
The  question  is,  What  is  the  matter  ? 

2.  The  Bible,  the  names  of  the  Deity,  and  pronouns  referring  to 
the  Deity;   as,  In  His  name. 

3.  Proper  names  of  persons,  places,  rivers,  oceans,  ships,  build- 
ings;   as,  Webster,  New  York,  the  Hudson,  the  Atlantic,  Titanic, 
Flatiron  Building. 

395 


396  ENGLISH  COMPOSITION 

4.  Proper    adjectives;    as,  French,  German,  American,  New 
Yorker,  Southerner,  Republican.    The  noun  modified  is  not  neces- 
sarily capitalized,  and  never  in  the  plural;    as,  French  people, 
English  language,  Baptist  churches,  Southern  states,  Republican 
party. 

5.  Names  of  historical  eras  and  important  events:  the  Renais- 
sance, the  Thirty  Years'  War,  the  Battle  of  Lake  Erie.     When  they 
are  used  in  reference  to  the  general  period  and  not  the  definite 
historical  period,    we   sometimes   find   renaissance    and   middle 
ages,  but  the  inexperienced  writer  will  do  well   always   to   use 
the  capitals. 

6.  Titles  when  before  names:   General  Booth,  Dr.  Blank  (but 
the  general,  the  doctor).     Also  all  titles  of  rulers  when  referring 
definitely  to  the  man:    the  President,  the  Czar,  the  Governor 
(but  an  emperor  of  Germany,  a  king  among  his  fellows). 

7.  Days  and  months,  but  not  seasons:    The  temperature  last 
Monday  broke  all  records  for  August,  and  for  the  summer. 

8.  The  word  "day"  in  special  days:    New  Year's  Day,  Com- 
mencement Day. 

9.  Chief  words  (nouns,  adjectives,  verbs)  in  titles  of   books, 
essays,  etc. 

10.  Names  of  college  classes,  courses,  departments,  subjects;  as, 
Freshman,    Mechanical    Drawing,    Metallurgy,    English     Com- 
position. 

THE    COMMA 

The  general  purpose  of  the  comma  is  to  set  off  subordinate  parts 
of  a  sentence  which  are  grammatically  independent,  whether 
words,  phrases,  or  clauses. 

The  comma  then  is  used:  — 

i.  To  set  off  relative  clauses  which  are  non-restrictive.    The  use 
or  non-use  of  the  comma  in  the  case  of  relative  clauses  is  often 
confused,  but  may  be  illustrated  in  the  following  sentences :  — 
He  sent  for  the  man,  who  was  a  Junior. 
He  sent  for  the  man  who  had  started  the  riot. 

In  the  first  sentence,  the  relative  clause  is  set  off  by  a  comma, 
because  it  is  merely  an  added  or  parenthetical  expression,  gram- 
matically independent,  the  sense  being  complete  at  the  comma. 


APPENDIX  -VII  397 

Such  a  clause  is  called  a  non-restrictive  clause,  and  must  always 
be  set  off  by  a  comma.  The  relative  clause  in  the  second  is  more 
closely  dependent  upon  the  main  clause,  the  sense  of  the  sentence 
not  being  completed  until  the  end  of  the  relative  clause;  because 
of  this  it  is  called  a  restrictive  clause.  Such  restrictive  clauses  are 
too  closely  related  to  the  rest  of  the  sentence  to  be  set  off  by  commas. 
Another  example  may  show  more  clearly  the  contrast  between 
these  uses:  — 

The  incident,  which  few  noticed,  impressed  me  deeply.  (Non- 
restrictive,  so  commas  are  used.) 

The  incident  which  decided  the  battle  was  the  failure  of  N 

to  support  the  left  flank.  (Restrictive,  so  no  comma  used.) 

2.  To  set  off  parenthetical  expressions;   as,  This,  you  know,  is 
a  common  error. 

3.  To  set  off  words  in  apposition;   as,  This  climate,  the  worst 
in  New  England,  is  very  trying. 

4.  To  separate  words  or  phrases  which  are  contrasted,  or  ar- 
ranged in  pairs:  Give  me  liberty,  or  give  me  death!    Liberty  and 
Union,  now  and  forever,  one  and  inseparable. 

5.  With   words   in   the    vocative    (direct   address):     Johnny, 
come  home.    That  this  is  sometimes  important  may  be  seen  by 
comparing  the  following : 

Gentlemen,  do  not  spit  on  the  floor. 
Gentlemen  do  not  spit  on  the  floor. 

6.  Before  quotations  not  over  a  sentence  in  length:    He  said, 
"I  am  here." 

7.  To  indicate  the  omission  of  a  word  or  words;   as,  Careful 
punctuation  is  valuable  to  both  reader  and  writer;  overpunctua- 
tion,  to  neither. 

8.  Between  words,  phrases,  and  clauses  in  series  without  con- 
junction:   Men,   women,  children,   all  were  there.     When   the 
conjunction  is  used  between  the  last  two,  the  comma  is  retained: 
Men,  women,  and  children,  all  were  there. 

9.  The  comma  may  be  used,  at  the  writer's  discretion,  to  sepa- 
rate closely  related  co-ordinate  clauses  which  have  no  commas 
within  the  clause. 


398  ENGLISH   COMPOSITION 


THE    SEMICOLON 

1.  In  general,  the  semicolon  serves  to  mark  the  larger  divisions 
of  the  sentence,  as  the  comma  marks  the  lesser  divisions:   When 
in  Rome,  I  do  as  Rome  does ;  when  in  New  York,  I  do  as  I  please. 
The  semicolon  should    be   reserved    for   separating    co-ordinate 
clauses;    the  comma  is  generally  sufficient  for  the  indication  of 
subordination,  as  in  the  illustration  above.     A  comma  may  be 
sufficient  to  separate  closely  related  co-ordinate  clauses  which 
have  no  commas  within  the  clauses:   I  have  been  in  the  business 
for  fifty  years  now,  and  I  have  seen  some  lazy  people  in  my  time ; 
but    the    semicolon   is   absolutely  necessary   to  distinguish   co- 
ordinate clauses  in  long  sentences,  and  clauses  which  contain 
commas:   A  solution  of  smelling  salts  in  water,  with  an  infinitesi- 
mal proportion  of  some  other  saline  matters,  contains  all  the 
elementary  bodies  which  enter  into  the  composition  of  protoplasm ; 
but,  as  I  hardly  need  say,  a  hogshead  of  that  fluid  would  not  keep 
a  hungry  man  from  starving,  nor  would  it  save  any  animal  what- 
ever from  a  like  fate.    The  semicolon  may  rarely  be   used   for 
a  similar  purpose  in  complex  sentences,  to  separate  subordinate 
clauses  which  are  long,  involved,  or  contain  phrases  set  off  by 
commas:   Thus  the  animal  can  only  raise  the  complex  substance 
of  dead  protoplasm  to  the  higher  power,  as  one  may  say,  of  living 
protoplasm ;  while  the  plant  can  raise  the  less  complex  substances 
—  carbonic  acid,  water,  and  nitrogenous  salts  —  to  the  same  stage 
of  living  protoplasm,  if  not  to  the  same  level. 

2.  The  semicolon  may  also  be  used  with  subordinate  clauses 
to  separate  clauses  of  equal  dependence :  — 

Yale  demands  that  every  man  on  the  team  shall  do  his  best; 
that  every  man  not  on  the  team  shall  support  the  team  in  every 
way;  and  that  there  be  no  adverse  criticism  of  the  coaching. 

3.  When  co-ordinate  clauses  are   balanced  and  unconnected 
by  conjunctions,  or  when  they  are  set  off   against  one  another, 
a  semicolon  is  needed :  — 

A  singular  inward  laboratory,  which  I  possess,  will  dissolve  a 
certain  portion  of  the  modified  protoplasm ;  the  solution  so  formed 
will  pass  into  my  veins;  and  the  subtle  influences  to  which  it  will 


APPENDIX   VII 

oW 

then  be  subjected  will  convert  the  dead  protoplasm  into  living 
protoplasm. 

4.  The  semicolon  is  used  also  to  introduce  an  example,  before 
as;  o  this  there  are  many  examples  in  this  chapter. 

THE    COLON 

The  colon  is  used:  — 

1.  To  introduce  a  list  of  particulars,  as  in  the  previous  line. 

2.  To  introduce  a  long  quotation:  — 

He  said  in  part:    "It  gives  me  great  pleasure,  etc." 

3.  When  this  quotation  is  indented  as  a  paragraph,  the  dash  is 
generally  used  with  the  colon:  — 

He  spoke  as  follows:  — 
"  Gentlemen,  etc." 

4.  At  the  beginning  of  a  letter,  after  the  salutation:  — 

Blank  and  Blank  Co., 
Dear  Sirs: 

THE    DASH 

1.  The  dash  is  the  sign  of  an  abrupt  break  in  the  construction, 
the  thought  being  interrupted  or  broken  off  :  — 

"I  hate  her;  she's  a  mean,  horrid  thing  —  but  don't  you  dare 
tell  her  I  said  so." 

2.  The  dash  may  be  used  —  for  the  sake  of  emphasis  —  to 
set  off  supplementary  or  appositive  words  or  phrases,  or  to  in- 
close parenthetical  words;   but  care  must  be  taken  not  to  overdo 
this;    generally  the  comma  should  be  used. 

He  wrote  fool,  but  he  should  have  written  —  Liar. 

The  old  observatory  —  a  quaint  brown  building  on  the  edge 
of  the  steep  —  and  the  new  Observatory  —  a  classical  edifice  with 
a  dome  —  occupy  the  central  portion  of  the  summit. 

THE    PERIOD 

The  period  is  used :  — 

1.  To  mark  the  completion  of  a  declarative  sentence. 

2.  After  abbreviations;   as,  D.D.,  Conn.,  Mr.  C.  A.  Jones. 


400  ENGLISH  COMPOSITION 


THE    EXCLAMATION    POINT 


The  exclamation  point  is  used:  — 

1.  To  express  strong  emotion:   Can  it  be  true ! 

2.  To  express  doubt:   It  can't  be  true! 

3.  -After  interjections:    Alas!  Oh! 


THE    INTERROGATION    POINT 

The  interrogation  point  is  used:  — 

1.  After  every  direct  question :  "  Is  he  here  ?  "     "  Can  he  go  ?  " 
"Why  not  ?  " 

2.  After   declarative    sentences    ending    in    a    question:     The 
question  is,  "Can  he  go  ?  " 

3.  In  parentheses  to  express  doubt:    Shakespeare  was  born 
April  23(?),   1564. 

THE    APOSTROPHE 

The  apostrophe  is  used:  — 

1.  To  form  the  possessive  case  of  nouns.     It  should  precede  the 
s  in  the  singular,  follow  it  in  the  plural:    The  boy's  room;    the 
boys'  coat  room.     In  the  case  of  proper  names  ending  in  5,  the 
apostrophe  may  be  used  with  or  without  another  s:  Burns'  Poems, 
or  Burns's  Poems;   but  never  Burn's  Poems.     Xouns  which  form 
the  plural  without  s  have  the  apostrophe  before  the  s  in  the  plural: 
The  men's  side;    the  children's  hour. 

2.  To   show   the   omission   of  a   letter:    doesn't,   can't.    The 
apostrophe  must  always  be  placed  where  the  dropped  letter  belongs; 
as,  'tis  and  it's,  which  both  come  from  it  is.    Its,  the  possessive, 
should  be  carefully  distinguished  from  it's,  the  contracted  form 
of  it  is.    The  apostrophe  never  appears  in  the  possessive  pronouns. 

3.  To  form  the  plural  of  letters,  numbers,  symbols,  etc.:   All 
the  n's  were  upside  down,  and  the  3's  were  turned  around  to  look 
like  e's." 

QUOTATION    MARKS 

i.  Quotation  marks  are  used  to  indicate  the  beginning  and 
end  of  a  direct  quotation.     When  the  sentence  terminates  in  an 


APPENDIX    VII  40I 

exclamation  point  or  an  interrogation  point,  this  punctuation  is 
included  within  the  quotation  marks  only  when  it  is  a  part  of  the 
quotation:  — 

He  asked,  "Is  it  eight  o'clock  ?"  but,  Did  he  say,  "It  is  eight 
o'clock"? 

2.  When  the  quotation  marks  cover  more  than  one  paragraph, 
they  are  repeated  at  the  beginning  of  each  paragraph,  but  at  the 
end  of  only  the  last  one. 

3.  For  a  quotation  within  a  quotation,  use  single  quotation 
marks;    as,    ("  '    '  ").     Should   the  inner  quotation  contain  a 
quotation  use  the  double  marks  again. 

DASHES    AND    DOTS 

Dots  .  .  .  and  dashes are  used  to  show  that  something 

unessential  has  been  left  out  purposely. 

DIVISION    OF    WORDS 

When  it  is  necessary  to  divide  a  word  at  the  end  of  a  line,  the 
following  rules  should  be  observed:  — 

1.  When  possible,  divide  on  the  vowel:  propo-sition,  not  prop- 
osition. 

2.  Avoid     two-letter    divisions    where     possible.    Avoid    the 
splitting  of  the  last  word  of  a  paragraph  between  two  lines,  making 
the  last  line  a  part  of  a  divided  word. 

3.  In  present  participles  carry  over  the  ing :   go-ing,  eat-ing; 
but  begin-ning,  set-ting,  twin-kling. 

EXERCISES    IN    PUNCTUATION 

i.  The  following  letter  from  the  old  English  play  Ralph 
Roister  Bolster  was  written  as  a  love  letter,  but  failed  in  its 
purpose  because  of  faulty  punctuation.  The  student  should 
punctuate  it  as  it  should  be  to  read  as  a  love  letter.  Only  part 
of  the  letter  is  given,  and  the  spelling  has  been  modernized. 

Sweet  mistress,  whereas  I  love  you  nothing  at  all, 
Regarding  your  substance  and  riches  chief  of  all, 


402  ENGLISH  COMPOSITION 

For  your  personage,  beauty,  demeanor  and  wit, 
I  commend  me  unto  you  never  a  whit. 
Sorry  to  hear  report  of  your  good  welfare, 
For,  as  I  hear  say,  such  your  conditions  are, 
That  ye  be  worthy  favor  of  no  living  man, 
To  be  abhorred  of  every  honest  man. 
To  be  taken  for  a  woman  inclined  to  vice. 
Nothing  at  all  to  Virtue  giving  her  due  price. 

2.  That  that  is  is  that  that  is  not  is  not. 


APPENDIX  VIII 

A  selected  list  of  books  which  will  be  useful  in  connection  with 
the  various  chapters  preceeding : — 

In  Exposition : 

BALDWIN,  C.  S.,  A  College  Manual  of  Rhetoric. 
PEARSON,  H.  G.,  The  Principles  of  Composition. 

On  the  Paragraph : 

SCOTT  and  DENNEY,  Paragraph  Writing.  (For  a  detailed  dis- 
cussion of  paragraph  .structure,  with  abundant  examples.) 

BALDWIN,  C.  S.,  The  Expository  Paragraph  and  Sentence.  (A 
brief  treatment  of  the  subject.) 

GENUNG,  J.  F.,  The  Practical  Elements  of  Rhetoric. 

On  the  Sentence: 

HILL,  A.  S.,  The  Principles  of  Rhetoric. 
CARPENTER,  G.  R.,  Exercises  in  Rhetoric  and  English  Com- 
position.    (Advanced  Course.) 

WEBSTER,  W.  F.,  English:  Composition  and  Literature. 
KELLOGG,  B.,  A   Textbook  on  Rhetoric. 
WOOLLEY,  E.  C.,  Handbook  of  Composition. 

On  Argumentation: 
BAKER  and  HUNTINGTON,  Principles  of  Argumentation.     (An 

exhaustive  treatment  of  the  whole  field  of  argument.) 
BROOKING  and  RING  WALT,  Briefs  for  Debate.    (An  excellent 
book  when  published,  but  now  somewhat  out  of  date  as 
regards  subjects  and  references.) 
RINGWALT,  R.  C.,  Briefs  on  Public  Questions. 
BUCK,  G.,  A  Course  in  Argumentative  Writing. 
403 


404  ENGLISH  COMPOSITION 

On  Description: 

BALDWIN,  C.  S.,  Specimens  of  Prose  Description. 
GARDINER,  KITTREDGE,  and  ARNOLD,  Manual  of  Composition 
and  Rhetoric. 

On  Narrative: 

For  discussions  of  narrative: 
BALDWIN,  C.  S.,  A  College  Manual  of  Rhetoric. 
BUCK  and  MORRIS,  A  Course  in  Narrative  Writing. 
GARDINER,  KITTREDGE,  and  ARNOLD,  A  Manual  of  Composi- 
tion and  Rhetoric.  „ 
ALBALAT,  ANTOINE,  L'Art  d'Ecrire. 

For  collections  of  stories  which  may  be  used  in  addition  to  the 

selections  in  this  volume: 
JESSUP  and  CANBY,  The  Book  of  the  Short  Story. 
NETTLETON,  G.  H.,  Specimens  of  the  Short  Story. 
MATTHEWS,  BRANDER,  The  Short  Story. 

On  Punctuation: 

WOOLLEY,  E.  C.,  Handbook  of  Composition. 
Notes  for  the  Guidance  of  Authors.    The  Macmillan  Co. 
BALDWIN,  C.  S.,  A  Summary  of  Punctuation. 
SCOTT  and  DENNEY,  Elementary  English  Composition. 


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acquainted  with  the  contents.  ...  All  these  articles  can  be  read  with  the 
greatest  profit,  and  should  be  accessible  in  every  library  in  the  land  —  to  say 
nothing  of '  every  gentleman's  library,'  whither  this  Dictionary  should  find  its 
way."  —  The  Nation,  New  York. 

"  One  of  the  most  enduring  literary  monuments  of  the  time.  Indeed,  it  is 
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reputation  of  so  many  of  its  contributors,  in  the  amazing  regularity  of  its 
appearance  from  first  to  last.  ...  In  conception  it  is  practically  single- 
handed,  and  the  financial  provision  for  its  cuccessful  completion  is  entirely 
due  to  the  public  spirit  of  a  single  man."  —  The  Times,  London. 


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BY  W.    T.    BREWSTER 

Adjunct  Professor  in  Rhetoric  and  English  Composition 
in  Columbia  University 

Representative  Essays  on  the  Theory  of  Style 

Clotb,  i2ino,  $1.10  net 

A  selection  of  the  best  essays  on  style,  including  those  of  Newman, 
De  Quincey,  Herbert  Spencer,  Lewes,  Stevenson,  Pater,  and  Frederic 
Harrison,  with  a  general  introduction  by  the  editor,  the  purpose  of  the 
volume  being  to  furnish  a  supplement  to  the  books  on  rhetoric  and  those 
of  general  counsel  and  advice  in  literary  matters.  The  introduction 
discusses  the  question  of  style  in  its  large  and  vital  relations,  analyzes 
the  various  elements  which  enter  into  it  and  makes  skilful  use  of  the 
material  which  the  editor  has  carefully  selected  for  the  body  of  the 
volume. 

Specimens  of  Modem  English  Literary  Criticism 

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This  book  belongs  to  the  realm  of  rhetoric  rather  than  of  literature  or 
literary  history.  It  aims  to  use  critical  writing  more  completely  than 
is  done  in  any  text-book  of  selections  as  an  agent  in  rhetorical  study 
and  intellectual  discipline.  The  selections  cover  Leslie  Stephen,  Dr. 
Johnson,  Macaulay,  Henry  James,  Matthew  Arnold,  Shelley,  Coleridge, 
and  others,  with  many  notes  and  an  excellent  and  comprehensive 
introduction. 

Studies  in  Structure  and  Style 

With  an  Introduction  by  GEORGE  RICE  CARPENTER,  Professor 
of  Rhetoric  and  English  Composition  in  Columbia  University 

Clotb,  121110,  $1.10  net 

The  author  has  used  rare  discrimination  in  selecting  the  essays  which 
he  discusses,  insisting  that  they  should  be  of  the  highest  class  of  modern 
literature  and  that  they  should  serve  as  models  to  the  student.  The 
analysis  of  structure  and  style  in  these  volumes  is  most  able,  and  the  book 
will  be  found  a  most  valuable  one  as  a  text  in  the  higher  institutions  of 
learning. 

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BY    GEORGE    R.    CARPENTER    AND   WILLIAM    T. 
BREWSTER 

Modern  English  Prose 

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"  This  book  will  prove  of  great  service  to  English  teachers.  The  selections, 
complete  and  unabridged  as  they  are,  and  made  with  nice  discrimination, 
will  be  welcomed  by  instructors  who  desire  to  place  before  their  pupils 
some  of  the  best  examples  of  modern  prose  writing."  —  WILMOT  B. 
MITCHELL,  Bowdoin  College,  Maine. 

BY  MILTON  PERCIVAL  AND  R.  A.  JELLIFFE 

Of  Oberlin  College 

Specimens  of  Exposition  and  Argument 

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The  selections  in  this  volume,  chosen  from  a  wide  range  of  literature, 
illustrate  the  different  phases  of  argument  such  as  persuasion,  refutation, 
and  controversy,  and  the  different  types  of  exposition  such  as  descrip- 
tions, explanations,  definitions,  and  interpretations. 

"  It  is  not  often  that  the  student  is  given  the  opportunity  to  use  a  text- 
book at  once  so  fascinating  and  so  essentially  practical." — Philadelphia 
.  Public  Ledger. 

BY  LANE  COOPER 

Of  Cornell  University 

Theories  of  Style 

J  Cloth,  ismo,  $1.10  net 

In  bringing  together  the  principal  treatises  and  the  loci  on  "  Theories  of 
Style  "  from  Plato  to  Frederic  Harrison,  Professor  Lane  Cooper  has  made 
a  book  useful  at  once  for  the  classroom  student  and  the  professional 
writer.  The  familiar  views  of  Plato,  Aristotle,  Coleridge,  De  Quincey, 
and  Spencer,  as  well  as  those  of  Wackernagel,  Schopenhauer,  and 
Brunetiere,  are  included.  

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The  English  Poets  (Selections) 


With  Critical  Introductions  by  various  writers,  and  General  Intro- 
duction by  MATTHEW  ARNOLD.  Edited  by  THOMAS  HUMPHRY 
WARD,  M.A. 

In  4  vols.     Student's  Edition.     Each  $1.00  net 

Vol.  I.  Chaucer  to  Donne.  Vol.  II.  Ben  Jonson  to  Dryden. 
Vol.  III.  Addison  to  Blake.  Vol.  IV.  Wordsworth  to  Rossetti. 

New  York  Evening  Mail  : 

"  The  best  collection  ever  made.   ...     A  nobler  library  of  poetry 

and  criticism  is  not  to  be  found  in  the  whole  range  of  English 

literature." 


English  Prose  (Selections) 


With  Critical  Introductions  by  various  writers,  and  General  Intro- 
ductions to  each  period.  Edited  by  HENRY  CRAIK. 

In  5  vols.     Each  $1.10  net 

Vol.  I.  !4-i6th  Century.  Vol.  II.  i6th  Century  to  Restoration. 
Vol.  III.  1 7th  Century.  Vol.  IV.  i8th  Century.  Vol.  V.  igth 
Century. 

The  object  of  this  collection  is  to  show  the  growth  and  develop- 
ment of  English  prose  by  extracts  from  the  principal  and  most 
characteristic  writers.  It  is  intended  primarily  as  a  supplement  to 
the  study  of  the  history  of  literature. 


Southern  Writers  (Selections  in  Prose  and  Verse) 

Edited  by  W.  P.  TRENT 

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